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Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics

CIDD embraces all scales and components of infectious disease biology. Our interdisciplinary approach, coupled with a dynamic viewpoint, provides insight into how to prevent or reduce infections.

Center Overview

CIDD encompasses expertise in such basic fields as ecology, evolution, mathematical biology and molecular biology as well as applied disciplines including epidemiology, drug development, and vector control. We have partnerships across the globe with academic institutions, health agencies, and industry leaders to help bring its science into translational practice. Trainees in CIDD benefit from developing scientifically in this rich collaborative research environment, informed and shaped by real world practice.

70+ Research Groups engaged globally in 40+ Countries representing 15 Academic Departments across 5 Colleges at Penn State

Why Choose CIDD?

Graduate Education

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Events

News

Q&A: Is AI democratizing global health or reinforcing old inequities?

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the tools that are central to global health decision-making in areas like disease control policies, financing and vaccination strategies, such as infectious disease modeling. This brings new opportunities to the modeling landscape, but could also exacerbate existing disparities, according to Matt Ferrari, professor of biology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences at Penn State.

Q&A: Tips to protect against ticks

May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and Pennsylvania consistently ranks as one of the top states in the nation for reported cases of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. However, there are ways to protect people, pets and livestock against ticks and the pathogens they carry, according to Erika Machtinger, associate professor of entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Connected habitats help wildlife fight disease, strengthen protective microbes

A team led by Penn State biologists found that amphibians in connected natural forests and aquatic habitats were more likely to host beneficial skin microbes that inhibit a deadly fungal pathogen. But when these habitats become spatially separated due to planted crops, infrastructure development or other human land use, those microbial defenses weaken and pathogen infection levels can increase with potentially deadly results.

News

Q&A: Is AI democratizing global health or reinforcing old inequities?

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the tools that are central to global health decision-making in areas like disease control policies, financing and vaccination strategies, such as infectious disease modeling. This brings new opportunities to the modeling landscape, but could also exacerbate existing disparities, according to Matt Ferrari, professor of biology and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences at Penn State.

Q&A: Tips to protect against ticks

May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month, and Pennsylvania consistently ranks as one of the top states in the nation for reported cases of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses. However, there are ways to protect people, pets and livestock against ticks and the pathogens they carry, according to Erika Machtinger, associate professor of entomology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Connected habitats help wildlife fight disease, strengthen protective microbes

A team led by Penn State biologists found that amphibians in connected natural forests and aquatic habitats were more likely to host beneficial skin microbes that inhibit a deadly fungal pathogen. But when these habitats become spatially separated due to planted crops, infrastructure development or other human land use, those microbial defenses weaken and pathogen infection levels can increase with potentially deadly results.

Molecular entomologist Jason Rasgon named AAAS Fellow

Jason L. Rasgon, Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Endowed Chair in Disease Epidemiology and Biotechnology at Penn State, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Events

Wednesday May

20

The neural bases of mosquito-host and flower interactions
Huck Distinguished Lecture Series

Friday Jun

05

Virology@PSU Meeting–June 2026

Events

Wednesday May

20


The neural bases of mosquito-host and flower interactions
Huck Distinguished Lecture Series

Friday Jun

05


Virology@PSU Meeting–June 2026