About Me / Home

Rund Heat Shot

I am a biologist (primarily chronobiology and vector ecology) and Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Research Computing, with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Sciences.

I am a faculty affiliate of the Eck Institute for Global Health.

View my profiles on: Google Scholar | ORCID | Research Gate

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Contact me at: srund@nd.edu

Research Areas

Please visit my research highlights page to learn more about my research topics which include:

  • Biocuration and research cyberinfrastructure
  • Mosquito Biology and Surveillance
  • The role of light, time (chronobiology), and temperature in mosquito physiology and ecology
  • The role of time/circadian rhythms in malaria transmission

Active projects of note

I have a number of current (below) and past projects to highlight

VectorByte

A 5-year NSF Division of Biological Infrastructure grant, awarded to Leah R. Johnson (Virginia Tech), Sadie J. Ryan (University of Florida), and myself in collaboration with Samraat Pawar (Imperial College London), that launched in August 2020.

The main goals of this project are to build a centralized open access data platform called VectorByte for biological trait (VecTraits) and abundance data (VecDyn); and to provide open access tools to explore and use the data, plus training and workshops, to ensure the initiative reaches a wide range of researchers and practitioners. VectorByte also hosts the Vector Data Ecosystem, our attempt to make a living catalogue of where vector data is available. 

Vector population dynamics across the United States

Understanding the population dynamics of American mosquitoes at a continental scale requires time series data on mosquito abundance at different sites. This project seeks to collect raw trap count data from many different contributors (e.g. mosquito abatement districts and academics), collate it in a public database, and make it available for visualization and download via an open access web interface. In this way, a little data from many diverse contributors can add up to a comprehensive resource for all. Our hope is to find data from each of the ~100 North American EPA level III co-regions.

More details can be found here.

Other Active Projects and Roles