Erlend has worked at CICERO since September 2024. At CICERO, he is particularly interested in studying and predicting how climate change is affecting the spread and frequency of infectious diseases. A better understanding of this is achieved by considering the links between environmental, animal and human health, via a "One Health" approach.

Erlend has previously worked as a biostatistician doing epidemiological research related to cancer and genetics. Before this he worked as a biologist researching how animals respond (within generations) and potentially adapt (across generations) to changes in climate (specifically temperature). He has developed and applied methods in statistics, bioinformatics and machine learning to study and predict cancer outcomes (e.g., survival) and changes in quality of life of head and neck cancer patients. He has previously also worked on diverse topics such as transcriptomics, life history evolution, thermal plasticity and adaptation, quantitative genetics, allometry of metabolism, population dynamics, and biosystematics in water scavenger beetles, nematodes and water fleas (Daphnia).

Education and previous employment

2022-2024: Postdoctoral Researcher, Oslo Centre for Biostatistics and Epidemiology (OCBE), Department of Biostatistics, University of Oslo, Norway
2019-2021: Postdoctoral Researcher, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Department of Ecology and Genetics, Uppsala University, Sweden
2014-2018: PhD Candidate, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics, Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway
2017: Visiting Scholar, Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology, Evolution and Conservation, KU Leuven, Belgium
2012-2014: MSc in Biology - Evolution and biosystematics, NTNU, Norway
2009-2012: BSc in Biology - Ecology and evolution, NTNU, Norway

Research groups

Climate and health

The climate and health research group is an interdisciplinary group with strong competence within a range of areas of relevance to health impact assessment.