Published 3/11/2025 | Written by Bob Proehl

Dr. Ana Bento, Assistant Professor for Cornell Public Health, ended up working on infectious diseases by accident. “I spent half my time as a PhD candidate developing mathematical models, and the other half chasing sheep up a hill on a remote Scottish island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean,” she says. What brought her to the island was her research on the short- and long-term effects of climate change on the population dynamics of wild sheep.

Dr. Bento was always interested in understanding drivers of change, but it wasn’t until the final year of her PhD that infectious diseases began to pique her interest. She became fascinated by bovine tuberculosis, which not only spread within cow populations, but also between cows and other species. This made determining how to prevent transmission a complex question—it not only involved the farming industry, but also the interface between wildlife and domestic animals.

As an ecologist, Dr. Bento looked at the problem from a holistic perspective, trying to understand all the interlacing components that made up the disease system, before translating them into mathematical models. Using these models, she has designed interventions related to cattle biosecurity, badger culling and vaccination, and simulating how a bovine tuberculosis vaccine, if approved, should be implemented.

In 2015, Dr. Bento moved to the U.S. from the U.K. and began applying her mathematical models to human diseases like measles and pertussis, childhood afflictions that were just beginning to reemerge in the U.S. and in other parts of the world. “I remember thinking it might be a fun adventure,” says Dr. Bento, “so I started gravitating towards human diseases, which until then weren’t even on my radar.”

The common logic at the time was that pertussis reemergence was caused by a decrease in vaccinations. However, Dr. Bento’s models showed that the increase in cases was too great to be fully explained by lower vaccination rates. “It was an interesting puzzle to address,” reflects Dr. Bento. “It opened up a whole host of interesting questions, a whole world of diseases.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Dr. Bento was called into action. Her work during the pandemic included wastewater and genomic pathogen surveillance, understanding human behavior that could impact transmission, and policy assessment. This represented a major shift in her work, from theoretical modeling to applying her models in real time to develop public health solutions.

During this time, Dr. Bento also began working with the Rockefeller Foundation to study climate-sensitive diseases in Latin America, particularly those spread by arthropods like mosquitos and ticks. Much of her current research at Cornell builds off this work, focusing on rapidly spreading and emerging diseases like dengue, oropouche, yellow fever, and zika—diseases whose spread has been fueled by climate change and anthropogenic actions.

As part of her current role, Dr. Bento also leads workshops and trainings on how to address complex disease transmission systems using mathematical models. Whether working with international institutions like the PAHO Health Emergencies Department, country-specific governmental institutions, or small research groups, “capacity building and knowledge sharing in both directions are key for long-term partnerships and impacts,” she says.

Working closely with colleagues from many disciplines has also deepened Dr. Bento’s own thinking about public health issues. “It’s not just a one-way street,” she says. “Public health needs transdisciplinary approaches to design effective solutions to the complex problems we now face.”