Conference Proposal: Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases; May 17, 2006; University Park, PA

This project will provide travel funds for graduate students and post-doctoral scholars to attend the Fourth Annual Conference on the Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases to be held at Penn State University on 18-20 May, and to attend a workshop preceeding the conference. The purpose of the workshop is to provide hands-on training in modeling disease systems, especially as they pertain to Pathogen genetic variation is modulated by host immunity, transmission bottlenecks and epidemic dynamics: these processes interact to shape the range of pathogen phylogenies observed at scales from within-host to population.The field of ecology and evolution of infectious disease is rapidly expanding. However, there is an acute shortage of people trained in disease modeling or biologists who are sufficiently quantitative to work with mathematicians. The workshop will address this shortage. The training of graduate students and post-docs is especially important as they represent the new wave of researchers in this area. The conference is the third focusing on these topics and is becoming the primary annual meeting for this topic. The understanding of the ecology of infectious disease has important implications for human health and the economics of agriculture.