Reilly Brennan

IGC FELLOW    |   Global Change Center

Ph.D. Student  •  Entomology

Advisors: Dr. Luis Escobar and Dr. Sally Paulson

Research Interests: Landscape ecology, disease ecology

reillybrennan@vt.edu  •  CV

Reilly joined the Entomology department as a doctoral student in the Fall of 2022. Reilly’s research focuses on the genetic and geographic determinants of zoonotic and vector-borne disease transmission.

Reilly earned a B.S. from Rutgers University in May of 2022, majoring in Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources. At Rutgers Reilly conducted research with the Center for Vector Biology spanning a range of topics including salt marsh mosquito eDNA detection, tick collection and pathogen surveillance, tick microbiomes, and predation of ticks. Reilly also completed a thesis studying the impacts of forest thinning on tick abundance in the New Jersey Pinelands.

Reilly’s project at Virginia Tech explores the biogeography of disease transmission in wildlife. Reilly is a disease ecologist interested in studying the likely drivers of zoonotic disease cycles along environmental gradients for parasites with direct or indirect transmission. Reilly plans to use the opportunities offered by the IGC to translate research to application for public health and wildlife management stakeholders.