Assoc Prof Courtney C. Murdock - Landscapes of infection: the role of the environment in shaping vector-borne disease transmission

Name: Associate Professor Courtney C. Murdock
University: Cornell University

Bio: I am currently an associate professor in the Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, at Cornell University. I received my B.S. in Biology (1997-2001) with a minor concentration in Spanish literature and a Ph.D. in disease ecology in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment (2002-2009) at the University of Michigan. During my PhD I focused on understanding the ecological drivers of blood parasite transmission in a breeding community of birds in the Colorado Rockies. I then moved to the Department of Biology and Entomology at Pennsylvania State University (2009-2014) where I trained under Drs. Matthew Thomas and Andrew Read. During my time at Penn State, my work focused on describing the effects of environmental variation (e.g., temperature) on the immune-physiology of the mosquito to better understand field relevant mechanisms that shape the outcome of the pathogen-mosquito interaction and efficacy of novel vector control tools. In 2015, I joined the faculty of the Department of Infectious Diseases, College of Veterinary Medicine, and the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia (2015-2020) as an Assistant Professor. I then moved my research program to Cornell University in 2020.