Dr. Ruairi Donnelly

Research Group

Epidemiology and Modelling

Research Overview

I design and analyse ecological and epidemiological models to find new solutions for improving plant health and for developing international pest management strategies, taking a mathematical, statistical, and, more recently, an economic approach. My research focuses on the interactions between insect, pathogen, and plant, in relation to the dynamics of crop epidemics and management. A particular focus has been on viral plant pathogens with destructive impacts on human livelihoods such as whitefly-borne cassava mosaic and brown streak viruses. I also work as part of an interdisciplinary team who undertake field work in East Africa, including colleagues at the University of Cambridge (Virology & Molecular Plant Pathology) and applied experimental biologists located at BecA ILRI, Nairobi.

Previous Positions

2015 to 2025 - Research Associate - Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge, UK

2010 to 2011 - Research placement - Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BIOSS), Edinburgh, UK

Qualifications

2015 - PhD - Department of Mathematics, Heriot-Watt University 

2010 - MRes - Mathematics in the Living Environment, University of York 

2005 - BSc - Mathematical Sciences, DCU, Republic of Ireland  

Key Publications

'The role of pathogen mediated insect superabundance in the east‐African emergence of a plant virus', (2022), Journal of Ecology.

'COVID-19 hospitalization rates rise exponentially with age, inversely proportional to thymic T-cell production', (2021), Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

'What is pathogen-mediated insect superabundance? ', (2020), Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

'Pathogenic modification of plants enhances long-distance dispersal of non-persistently transmitted viruses to new hosts', (2019), Ecology.

'The epidemiological feedbacks critical to the evolution of host immunity', (2015), Journal of Evolutionary Biology.