Dr. Sadie J. Ryan

Professor of Medical Geography

Geography

Principal Investigator, Emerging Pathogens Institute

Co-Director, Florida Climate Institute at UF

Affiliate Faculty:  SNRE Program, African Studies, Environmental and Global Health (EGH), Latin American Studies (LATAM), Water Institute

Quantitative Disease Ecology & Conservation Lab (QDEC Lab)

Curriculum Vitae

ORCID

LinkedIn, Bluesky

Research Statement

We work on medical geography and ecology at the human interface, its implications for disease, conservation, sustainability, and wildlife management. Our research currently focuses on climate-health issues, modeling vector borne diseases, geospatial models for intervention, and quantifying social-ecological risk of disease emergence and exposure in a changing world. Our interdisciplinary work incorporates tools from medical geography, quantitative and applied ecology, and the social sciences. We use techniques from the lab to the field to the computer to the white board. We play well with others, and welcome collaborations.​

Be Kind, and do Good Science.

Focus Areas

Recent courses

  • GEO 3454: Peoples and Plagues

Recent Funded Projects

  • NSF Center for Analysis and Prediction of Pandemic Expansion (APPEX) 2025-2031
  • Wellcome Trust TACTIC: HealTh ImpAct ToolkIt for Climate Change Attribution (2025-2028)
  • NSF CIBR VectorByte: A Global Informatics Platform for studying the Ecology of Vector-Borne Diseases 2020-2026
  • NSF BII: Predicting the global host-virus network from molecular foundations 2022-2026
  • CDC Southeastern Regional Center of Excellence in Vector Borne Diseases 2021-2026

Recent Publications

Ryan, S.J., & Lippi, C.A. 2026. Management implications of shifting Culex quinquefasciatus West Nile virus transmission suitability in Florida. Vector Borne Zoon Dis 15303667261426902

Ryan, S.J., Huxley, P.J., Lippi, C.A., Pawar, S., Cator, L., Rund, S.S.C., & Johnson, L.R. 2026. MIReVTD, a Minimum Information standard for Reporting Vector Trait Data. GigaScience, giag020. 

Sambado, S., Ryan, S.J. 2026. Ecological and socioeconomic factors associated with globally reported tick-borne viruses. Comms Med 6, 210

Flory, S.L., Ryan, S.J., Taneja, Y., Munoz, M., Lippi, C., Allan, B. 2025. Impacts of plant invasions on tick-borne disease risk. BioScience 153

Ebi, K.L.,  Bi, P.,  Bowen, K.,  Brauer, M., Chua, P.L.C., Felipe Colón González, F., Dimitrova, A., Gasparrini, A., Gouveia, N.,  Hajat, S., Hamilton, I.,  Harper, S., Hasegawa, Y.,  Hashizume, M., Heaviside, C., Honda, Y., Green, C., Jack, C.,  Kim, H.,  Kinney, P., Kone, B., Kovats, S., Lloyd, S.J., Morse, A.P., Ogden, N.H., Paz, S., Price, J., Ryan, S.J.,  Semenza, J.C., Sheehan, T., Taylor, R., Bas van Ruijven, B., Vicedo-Cabrera, A.M., Warren, R., Zaitchik, B., Hess, J.J. 2025. Priority climate and health modeling needs. Lancet Planet Health 9(9): 101297

Carlson, C.J., Mitchell, D., Gibb, R., Stuart-Smith, R.F., Carleton, T.A., Lavelle, T.E., Lippi, C.A., Lukas-Sithole, M., North, M.A., Ryan, S.J., Shumba, D.S., Chersich, M., New, M., Trisos, C.H. 2025. Health losses attributable to anthropogenic climate change. Nat Clim Change 15:1052-1055. 

Bhandari, S., Blackburn, J.K., Ryan, S.J. 2025. Spatial Patterns of Dengue Incidence in Nepal During Record Outbreaks in 2022 and 2023: Implications for Public Health Interventions. Am J Trop Med Hyg 113(2):366-373

Fefferman, N.H., Blum, M.J., Bourouiba, L., Gibson, N.L., He, Q., Miller, D.L., Papeș, M., Pasquale, D.K., Verheyen, C., Ryan, S.J. 2025. Identifying outbreak risk factors through case-controls comparisons. Comms Med 5(1), 210.

Lim, A., Shearer, F., Sewalk, K., Pigott, D., Clarke, J., Ghouse, A., Judge, C., Kang, H., Messina, J., Kraemer, M., Gaythorpe, K., de Souza, W., Nsoesie, E., Celone, M., Faria, N., Ryan, S.J., Rabe, I., Rojas, D., Hay, S., Brownstein, J., Golding, N., Brady, O. 2025. The overlapping global distribution of dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever. Nat Comm., 16(1), 3418.

Shocket, M.S., Bernhardt, J.R., Miazgowicz, K.L., Orakzai, A., Savage, V.M., Hall, R.J., Ryan, S.J., Murdock, C.C. 2025. Mean daily temperatures can predict the thermal limits of malaria transmission better than rate summation. Nat Comm., 16(1), 3441.

Ryan, S.J., Lippi, C.A., Stewart-Ibarra, A.M. 2024. Mapping geographic and demographic shifts in container breeding mosquito-borne disease transmission suitability in Central and South America in a warming world. PLOS Clim 3(5), e0000312

López-Rosero, A., Sippy, R., Stewart-Ibarra, A.M., Ryan, S.J., Mordecai, E., Heras, F., Beltrán, E., Costales, J.A., & Neira, M. 2024. High prevalence of Zika virus infection in populations of Aedes aegypti from South-western Ecuador. PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 18(1), e0011908.

Fletcher, R.J., Iezzi, M.E., Guralnick, R., Marx, A.J., Ryan, S.J., Valle, D. 2023. A framework for linking dispersal biology to connectivity across landscapes. Landsc Ecol. 38: 2487–2500.

Lippi, C.A., Mundis, S.J., Sippy, R., Flenniken, M.J., Chaudhary, A., Hecht, G., Carlson, C.J., and Ryan, S.J. 2023. Trends in mosquito species distribution modeling: insights for vector surveillance and disease control. Parasit. Vectors 16:302

Ryan, S.J., Ladau, J. 2023. Exploring species assemblages in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Af J. Wild Res 53

Bhattarai, S., Blackburn, J.K., Ryan, S.J.  2023. Analyzing the spatial and temporal patterns of designated malaria risk areas in Nepal from 2018 to 2021. Vector Borne Zoonotic Dis 23(6):350-353

Educational Background

  • PhD in Environmental Science, Policy and Management (ESPM), University of California at Berkeley, 2006
  • B.A. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB), Princeton University, 1998

Current Graduate Students

  • Marissa Rice (incoming 2026)

Current Undergraduates

  • Noor-ul-Ain Bhatti
  • Neha Senthilkumar

Recent Graduate Students

  • Simrik Bhandari (M.S., UF)
  • Dr. Shreejana Bhattarai (Ph.D. 2023, UF)
  • Dr. Stephanie Mundis (Ph.D. 2021, UF)
  • Dr. Cat Lippi (Ph.D. 2021, UF)
  • James Martin (M.S. 2019, UF)

Recent Undergraduates

  • Ava Johnson (Honors Thesis 2026)
  • Anna Shannin (2024 GeoGator Summer Researcher, 2025 Undergraduate Research, Honors Thesis 2026)
  • Breanna Blackwood (2024 GeoGator Summer Researcher)
  • Tracy Lin (2024 GeoGator Summer Researcher)

Recent Postdocs