About

Brian Allan is a professor affiliated with the Center for African Studies at the University of Illinois. His research focuses on the ecology of infectious diseases, particularly those transmitted via the bite of infected arthropods such as ticks and mosquitoes. He investigates the consequences of human-mediated global change, including climate change and land-use alterations, on the risk of exposure to parasites and pathogens carried by wildlife. His work emphasizes understanding how landscape changes influence the emergence and transmission of tick-borne diseases, utilizing a variety of tools including molecular technologies, remote sensing applications, and theoretical modeling. In addition to his primary research, Brian Allan holds several campus affiliations. He serves as the Associate Director for Academic Affairs at the School of Integrative Biology, and has roles as Acting Head of Entomology, Professor of Entomology, and as an affiliate of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and the Center for Global Studies. His contributions extend to teaching, research, and collaborative efforts aimed at understanding and mitigating the risks associated with vector-borne diseases.

Research topics

• Ecology
• Computer Science
• Immunology
• Biology
• Toxicology
• Zoology
• Cartography
• Geography

Selected publications

• Classifying behaviors from animal-borne cameras using machine learning: automated identification of breathing events in sea turtles

  Journal of Experimental Biology · 2026-05-18

  articleOpen access

  Animal-borne cameras are increasingly used to study animal behavior. Here, we assessed the utility of three machine-learning models: Resnet-50 (3 epochs), Resnet-50 (10 epochs), and Vision Transformer (ViT) (3 epochs) for identifying breathing behavior from animal-borne camera footage from green turtles (Chelonia mydas Linnaeus, 1758). The ViT-model had mean Accuracy (97.2%), Precision (63.3%), and F1 (72.7%) scores that outperformed the Resnet-50 models, while all models had a Recall of>99.9%. Thus, the ViT model correctly identified almost all breathing frames although false positives (apnea frames labelled as breathing) were relatively common and led to an over-estimation of breathing rates. We conclude that ViT models are a promising solution for behavioral classification of animal-borne camera footage and even if not yet capable for the fully automated calculation of breathing events in sea turtles, they can still massively reduce the quantity of footage that needs to be manually checked and labelled.

  PublisherDOI

• Dead deer do tell tales: infestation of road-killed white-tailed deer by juvenile <i>Ixodes scapularis</i> (Ixodida: Ixodidae) ticks

  Journal of Medical Entomology · 2025-07-12

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) contributes indirectly to the enzootic circulation of the Lyme disease pathogen, Borrelia burgdorferi by serving as the primary reproductive host for adult-stage blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis). The role of white-tailed deer as a host for juvenile life stages is less well understood, in part because their periods of activity typically fall outside of most white-tailed deer hunting seasons. We inspected 22 road-killed deer for all stages of blacklegged ticks in Rutland County, Vermont from May to August in 2020, 2021, and 2024. Adult-stage blacklegged ticks were found attached to ten deer in May and early June. Larval-stage ticks, including ones that were partially engorged, were found on 3/5 deer inspected by hanging the head, hide, and legs over water for approximately 24 hours. We directly observed 7 nymphal-stage ticks attached to one additional deer. This study adds to a growing body of evidence that the role of juvenile feeding on white-tailed deer may be underestimated and demonstrates that the study of road-killed deer may improve our understanding of how populations of blacklegged ticks are maintained among wildlife communities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Impacts of plant invasions on tick-borne disease risk

  BioScience · 2025-11-06 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Under global change, plant invasions may alter tick-borne disease exposure risk. The direction and magnitude of changes in tick-borne disease risk resulting from invasions remain poorly understood because research has often been species specific or insufficient to quantify the mechanisms of risk. In this Overview, we describe how invasive plant functional traits can mediate microclimates, how tick survival and abundance vary under altered environmental conditions created by invasive plants, and how invasive plants can affect blood meal host activity and pathogen prevalence. These findings are synthesized within a One Health framework that considers climate, landscape, and disturbance to ultimately predict tick-borne disease risk. We then discuss modeling approaches for predicting tick-borne disease risk amid global change and identify research gaps and future directions, including quantification of invader functional traits, assessment of plant invasion effects on tick-borne disease risk, and the potential for plant invasions to facilitate geographic expansions of ticks, hosts, and pathogens.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ecosystems and Infectious Disease

  2025-01-13

  book-chapter

  The complex interplay of ecosystems and infectious disease is critical to understand and appreciate as a global practitioner. This chapter discusses some key examples and case studies that highlight the interplay of biodiversity and infectious disease, healthy environments, the effects of health on ecosystems, and nature-based solutions to health issues. Transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and One Health approaches need to be strongly considered when evaluating the impact of ecosystems on infectious disease because of their complexity and often unknown or unintended effects.

  PublisherDOI

• Membership in team science institute enhances diversity of researchers’ collaboration networks

  PLoS ONE · 2025-05-23 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Interdisciplinary scientific teams are subject to a complex constellation of potential benefits, such as enabling innovation, and challenges, such as increased conflict and failure. Given these tensions, scholars and practitioners are increasingly interested in the role that organizational policies and resources can play in potentially mitigating the challenges faced on interdisciplinary teams. We report results from quantitative case study of a research institute dedicated to providing resources to enable interdisciplinary scientific teams, to examine how joining an organization with resources devoted to interdisciplinarity affected researchers' collaborations. We adopt bibliometric network techniques to explore the productivity and diversity of scientists' collaborations before and after joining the institute. Generalized linear mixed-effect modeling shows a significant increase for researchers in their number of papers and co-authors after joining the institute. Comparison to a matched pair control group indicates researchers who joined the institute experienced a significantly greater increase in their diversity of co-authors, and no relative decrease in the number of papers produced, despite challenges inherent to interdisciplinary collaboration. These findings suggest institutional resources can operate to broaden collaboration diversity without harming researcher productivity, which has important implications for team science and science policy.

  PublisherDOI

• Impacts of plant invasions on tick-borne disease risk

  2025-01-06 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Under global change, plant invasions may alter tick-borne disease (TBD) transmission. The direction and magnitude of changes in TBD risk resulting from invasions remain poorly understood because research has often been species-specific or insufficient to quantify mechanisms. In this overview, we describe how invasive plant functional traits can mediate microclimates, how tick survival and abundance vary under altered environmental conditions created by invasive plants, and how invasive plants can impact blood meal host activity and pathogen prevalence. These findings are synthesized within a One Health framework that considers climate, landscape, and disturbance to ultimately predict TBD risk. Finally, we discuss range expansion of ticks and pathogens, spatial and temporal research scales, and modeling approaches for predicting TBD risk amidst global change. We highlight how plant invasions and climate change can impact ticks, hosts, and pathogens, and we identify research needs to improve models of TBDs in a changing world.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Corrigendum to “Spatial distribution and clustering of medically important tick species in Illinois: Implications for tick-borne disease risk” [Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases 16 (2025) 102533]

  Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases · 2025-10-18

  erratumOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Spatial distribution and clustering of medically important tick species in Illinois: Implications for tick-borne disease risk

  Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases · 2025-08-06 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  The geographic range of medically significant tick species has expanded across the United States, with Illinois experiencing increased tick populations and incidence of tick-borne diseases (TBDs) in recent decades. This study investigated the spatial distribution of three tick species: Amblyomma americanum (lone star tick), Dermacentor variabilis (American dog tick), and Ixodes scapularis (blacklegged tick) in Illinois, using data collected through active surveillance from 2018 to 2022. A total of 476 records of 1414 ticks were analyzed. Spatial analytical techniques, including species distribution mapping, Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW) interpolation, Hot Spot (Getis-Ord Gi*), and Cluster and Outlier (Anselin Local Moran's I) analyses, were applied to identify distribution patterns and statistically significant local clusters. The species distribution mapping results revealed distinct geographic patterns: A. americanum was most prevalent in southern, D. variabilis in central and southern, and I. scapularis in central and northeastern Illinois regions, respectively. With agreement between Hot Spot and Cluster-outlier analysis, counties with significantly high tick prevalence were identified, including 10 counties for A. americanum in southern Illinois, four counties for D. variabilis in central and southern Illinois, and seven counties for I. scapularis in central and northeastern Illinois. The study results correspond with incidence of TBDs reported to the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), including ehrlichiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Lyme disease, and anaplasmosis. These findings provide insights into the geographic variability of tick distributions, emphasizing the importance of targeted public health strategies and tick control efforts to mitigate the burden of TBDs in Illinois.

  PublisherDOI

• Mechanistic pathways of tick exposure risk in native and invaded plant communities

  Ecology · 2025-10-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Plant invasions may alter disease vector abundance by several mechanistic pathways, including modifying microclimates that influence vector survival or changing habitats to influence host use. Here, we used a field experiment and observational data to evaluate multiple mechanistic pathways (tick survival and host abundance) by which plant invasions may alter vector-borne disease risk using the common disease vector lone star tick (Amblyomma americanum), its preeminent host white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and the widespread invasive cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) in the southeastern United States. In the field experiment, ticks survived over 50% longer in areas dominated by the invasive plant compared to those with only native plant species. Invaded areas had lower temperatures and higher relative humidity, yielding a lower vapor pressure deficit (VPD) that likely reduced tick desiccation. The observational study showed similar average tick abundance in native and invaded plant communities and no difference in wildlife host (white-tailed deer) activity between plant communities. However, there was a positive relationship between tick abundance and white-tailed deer activity, but only in native areas. Together, these results suggest that more favorable microclimate conditions resulting in greater tick longevity are the dominant driver of tick abundance in invaded areas, while tick abundance in native-dominated areas may be promoted, at least in part, by white-tailed deer activity. Our results demonstrate that plant invasions can affect multiple, potentially counteracting mechanistic pathways that contribute to tick exposure risk. The complexity of these relationships highlights the need for a better understanding of how invasive species and other global change drivers influence disease vectors and, ultimately, disease transmission.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evaluating vector mosquito occurrence in residential rain barrels in central Illinois

  Journal of Medical Entomology · 2025-02-21

  articleSenior author

  Several species of vector mosquitoes (eg Culex pipiens (Linnaeus, 1758), Aedes albopictus (Skuse, 1895)) complete juvenile development in artificial containers. Rain barrels are green infrastructure tools used to conserve rainwater for outdoor use, though they may also serve as a source of mosquito habitat in residential neighborhoods. To identify rain barrel features, maintenance habits, and other conditions associated with the presence of juvenile mosquitoes (ie month), we conducted periodic inspections of rain barrels at 53 households in central Illinois, USA between June and September 2016. Additionally, we administered a questionnaire to the household study participants. In the first month of the study, a diversity of mosquito species was detected in household rain barrels, but from July to September juveniles of Ae. albopictus were predominant. More than half of inspected households contained at least one mosquito-positive rain barrel within the study period. Using stepwise model selection, the strongest predictors of whether or not mosquito juveniles were detected in rain barrels were the use of a preventative measure (eg Bti, chlorine, goldfish), the presence of a mesh covering on the lid of the barrel, and the month of the year. Additionally, the participant questionnaire revealed that the majority of respondents were aware of immediate elimination methods, but few were aware of the need for long-term preventative maintenance of rain barrels against larval mosquito colonization. These findings provide valuable insight into best practices for mosquito prevention in green infrastructure and highlight the importance of proper maintenance and education to minimize juvenile mosquito habitat.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CNH: An Ecological Trap for Parasites and Its Impacts on Human Disease Risk, Nutrition, and Income

  NSF · $1.5M · 2013–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Jinhui Yan

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Phong V. V. Le

  Oak Ridge National Laboratory

  36 shared

• Thanh H. Nguyen

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Praveen Kumar

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  36 shared

• Andrew W. Taylor‐Robinson

  University of Pennsylvania

  36 shared

• Lei Zhao

  36 shared

• Ephantus J. Muturi

  Agricultural Research Service

  22 shared

• Allison M. Gardner

  University of Maine

  16 shared

Labs

• The Allan LabPI