Richard S. Ostfeld

Ostfeld's research centers on the ecology of infectious diseases. His work on Lyme disease has focused on how ecological processes (e.g. the masting of oak trees, predation) affect the probability that a tick will become infected with the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. He also studies the ecology of other tick-borne diseases, including babesiosis, anaplasmosis, and Powassan viral encephalitis. From 2016 to 2021, Ostfeld co-directed the Tick Project with Felicia Keesing to test whether environmental interventions could prevent Lyme and other tick-borne diseases for people living in residential neighborhoods of Dutchess County, New York.

In 2009, Ostfeld received the C. Hart Merriam Award from the American Society of Mammalogists in recognition of "outstanding research in mammalogy over a period of at least 10 years". He is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America (2014), and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014). In 2019, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Ostfeld received his B.S. in biology at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1979 and his PhD in zoology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1985. From 1986 to 1989, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University, and he has been a scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies since 1990.

Richard Simon Ostfeld (born September 25, 1954) is a Distinguished Senior Scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York. He is best known for his work on the ecology of Lyme disease, which he began studying while monitoring the abundance of small mammals in the forests of Cary Institute property in the early 1990s.