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.
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.
[1] His work falls into three main areas, all of which center on how the basic biology of ecological systems is affected by human impacts, such as biodiversity loss and climate change.
First, he studies the effects of environmental variables on tick survival, behavior, and population performance to understand how risk for Lyme and other tick-borne diseases is changing as the climate warms.