Dr. Courtney Murdock

“I wish they had computed a bit less and thought a bit more”

Hill Country flooding: Here’s how to give and receive help Catastrophic flooding in the Texas Hill Country has killed 79 people. Rescue crews are searching for missing girls from Camp Mystic. Here is a guide on how to help those affected.

As heartbreaking news continues to emerge from central Texas, @chastenbuttigieg.bsky.social and I are thinking of everyone affected and grateful for the extraordinary work of first responders.

Here are some ways all of us can help:

The manuscript offers new insights into spatial and temporal patterns of urban microclimate, emphasizing contrasts between dry- and wet-bulb temperatures and indoor and outdoor microenvironment. We would be interested to hear your feedback!

New preprint from our group on how indoor and outdoor microclimates vary across Indian cities and seasonally: essopenarchive.org/doi/full/10....

@mcwimberly.bsky.social and Yusuf Jamal provide data identifying the location and seasonal timing of extreme wet bulb temperature in urban settings.

When I am not professoring, I am momming. Spent the weekend in Niagra, New York at the TCS Niagra Falls Summer Showndown AAU youth hockey tournament. My son's AA 12U team took home the championship. Great way to end the spring hockey season.

Postdoc position available at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine!

@ecodynvplab.bsky.social

Another preprint from our group online!

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

We find socioeconomic disparities and water management practices influence urban malaria incidence and prevention behaviors in Surat and Ahmedabad, two cities of India in the state of Gujurat.

Beyond temperature: Relative humidity systematically shifts the temperature dependence of population growth in a malaria vector Understanding ectotherm responses to environmental change is central to coping with many of humanity′s current and future challenges in public health, biodiversity conservation, and food security. Com...

New preprint out from our group! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We find that relative humidity systematically shifts the temperature dependence of a key malaria vector. These effects are also likely important for aquatic insects more generally, and for predicting their responses to climate change.

😂

Celebrating @mosquitohunting.bsky.social today in lab meeting and her recent publication!

www.frontiersin.org/journals/mal...

Frontiers | Mosquito vector diversity and malaria transmission Malaria is the most important parasitic disease in the world, killing over half a million people a year. Globally, we have made gains toward eliminating this...

New paper out by @mosquitohunting.bsky.social!

www.frontiersin.org/journals/mal...

This paper explores how variation in mosquito diversity, feeding behavior, vector competence, seasonality, and vector-pathogen interactions shape the transmission, persistence, and evolution of human malaria!

Congratulations to Dr. Mike Newberry, a PhD student in my group who graduated officially from the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia on May 8th 😊! Well done, and congratulations, Mike!

I am very excited to participate in a keynote lecture by Ray Huey, one of the fathers of thermal and physiological ecology, today during Evo Day here at Cornell. His work is the foundation of our work, and it is awesome to see it presented live today 😊.

Field-validation of multiple species distribution models shows variation in performance for predicting Aedes albopictus distributions at the invasion edge Climate and land use changes have resulted in range expansion of many species. In this shifting disease landscape, it is important to leverage tools that can predict the potential distributions of inv...

New preprint out from our group led by @infectiouschill.bsky.social! Anna compares how various species distribution models perform at predicting the relatively recent invasion of the Asian tiger mosquito, a significant pest species, in Suffolk County, New York.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Heading home to the U.S. today. Here is the almost complete team from the Surat Municipal Corporation...out for a team dinner. We are missing Mr. Suthar and Dr. Dhwani, who were busy for World Malaria Day. Thank you as always for your excellent work, your collaboration, and friendship.

Also, this tractor...why can't we have nice things in the United States 😊. This makes me happy.

We placed the final 144th logger today in Surat with @mcwimberly.bsky.social and colleagues from the Surat Municipal Corporation. Here are some pics from the field 😊.

World Malaria Day. Progress has been made on malaria elimination but it remains a killer. Changing climate, invasive mosquitoes, and limited global funding are threatening efforts. Today, we are in India working to better understand the effects of climate on urban malaria. @mcwimberly.bsky.social

Spent World Malaria Day with @ecodynvplab.bsky.social and colleagues in Surat, India studying mosquito microhabitats in urban construction sites. Best wishes to all who work to control and eliminate this terrible disease- your efforts are greatly appreciated!

We set another 36 loggers across construction sites today to monitor the microclimate mosquitoes experience during the pre-monsoon season. Here are some pics of construction trucks because they make me happy. Why can't we have colorful trucks in the U.S.? @mcwimberly.bsky.social

Pics from Surat today. Super hot and humid in the pre-monsoon season here...it was a sweat fest. We have placed 72 loggers thus far throughout construction sites. Also, we found a lot of mosquitoes in these sites, especially in the unfinished underground parks. @mcwimberly.bsky.social

Spent the day replacing batteries and reprogramming loggers so they are ready to be placed across construction sites throughout Surat. Looking forward to setting them the rest of the week. It is the beginning of the pre-monsoon season here, so very hot and relatively dry. @mcwimberly.bsky.social

Heading back to India. We will quantify the microclimate mosquitoes experience in construction sites, as they are potentially important climate refugia during the hot, dry pre-monsoon season for malaria and dengue mosquitoes. Potentially, my last trip due to NIH funding freezes threatening Cornell.

Headed to the University of Georgia to give a seminar in the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases and for one of my Ph.D. student's defense. I am very excited to see my former colleagues and friends. And, it's spring break, so bringing the family 😊.

"Mean daily temperatures predict the thermal limits of malaria transmission better than hourly rate summation" new paper now out in NatComm, led by @martashocket.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1038/s414...

@martashocket.bsky.social @sjryan3.bsky.social @joeybernhardt.bsky.social @richardlovesbirds.bsky.social and Van Savage and Kerri Miazgowicz! Go team!

Mean daily temperatures predict the thermal limits of malaria transmission better than hourly rate summation - Nature Communications Malaria transmission is sensitive to temperature and models of malaria typically account for daily fluctuations in temperature through a ‘rate summation’ approach. Here, the authors conduct experiment...

New paper out! A common computational approach to predict organismal fitness and distributions in the field could vastly overpredict the potential range of thermal suitability for malaria transmission relative to performance characterized at constant temperatures: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Opinion | Universities Should Not be Afraid of Contentious Ideas (Gift Article) Higher education cannot cede the space of public discourse and the free exchange of ideas.

Powerful statement from President Kotlikoff at Cornell. Thank you for stepping up.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/31/o...

"Our colleges and universities are cradles of democracy and bulwarks against autocracy."

Mean daily temperatures can predict the thermal limits of malaria transmission better than rate summation Temperature shapes the distribution, seasonality, and magnitude of mosquito-borne disease outbreaks. Mechanistic models predicting transmission often use mosquito and pathogen thermal responses from c...

Boom. Accepted for publication in Nature Communications. This paper has been a journey, but it is done. Here, we explore the use of constant temperature experiments to predict the thermal suitability for malaria transmission in a diurnally fluctuating environment.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...