Frederic Bartumeus

Frederic Bartumeus Ferré
Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes,
Consell Superior d’Investigacions Científiques (CEAB-CSIC), Girona
Project Leader

Community-driven big data intelligence to fight mosquito-borne disease.

• John R.B. Palmer (PL)
  Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona

• Emilio Zagheni
  Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock

• Diana Gómez Barroso
  National Center of Epidemiology (CNE), Madrid

• Roger Eritja
  Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry, Barcelona

Some of the world’s most threatening diseases are transmitted by mosquitoes. These include dengue, yellow fever, zika and chikungunya, all transmitted by the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) and by Aedes aegypti. These viral diseases impose enormous economic and health burdens. Faced with this threat, the project proposes a new way of undertaking epidemiology. A new approach that combines citizen participation, epidemiological and environmental data to create mathematical models that estimate, in real time, the areas of greatest risk of transmission of these diseases. In other words, models capable of detecting where a local outbreak could originate in Spain. An open innovation project that will be able to transform Big Data into useful information that anticipates responses at the public health level. In short, a new way of managing and analyzing information through new technologies will be crucial to organize effective responses to possible outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases.

Since 2014, Frederic Bartumeus has been an ICREA Research Professor in Computational and Theoretical Ecology at CEAB-CSIC. He also holds an associate research position at CREAF. He obtained a MSc in plankton ecology and a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Barcelona. After that, he joined the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University (USA), and completed his postdoctoral research on vector-borne diseases at the Institut Català del Clima (IC3). After obtaining a Ramón y Cajal position, he founded his lab at CEAB-CSIC. Currently, it is a joint lab with other researchers named Theoretical and Computational Ecology Group. Bartumeus has obtained awards such as the City Council of Barcelona (Spain) Premi Ciutat Barcelona 2017 and the Distinguished Researcher by the Spanish Research Council (CSIC) in 2018. (Read full CV).

My research is focused in the emerging field of movement ecology, which aims to reveal the complex forces that drive movement and dispersal patterns of animals (including humans). Improved tracking technology (GPS, bio-loggers, smart-phones) demands an integrative view, with new computational tools and modeling frameworks to understand unprecedented levels of detail from a constantly growing number of species. I am contributing to this scientific revolution based on a broad, highly collaborative, and interdisciplinary research program, founded solidly on statistical physics and quantitative ecology. A central question in my research is how animals use information and their motor properties to optimize search strategies. The mechanistic linkage between behavioral processes and movement patterns is also key to understanding globalised problems such as the perpetuation of social inequality among humans or the spread of vector-borne infectious diseases.

Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes (CEAB)
C/ d'accés a la Cala St. Francesc, 14
Blanes - Girona - 17300 (España)

Tel.: (+34) 972 33 61 01
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @fredbartu