The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. NSF was established in 1950 by Congress to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, and secure the national defense.
The Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program is designed to support research into the ecological, evolutionary, organismal, and social drivers that influence the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. The focus is on projects that provide a quantitative, mathematical, or computational understanding of pathogen transmission dynamics to discover principles of infectious disease emergence, re-emergence, and transmission. This includes testing mathematical or computational models to elucidate disease systems. Projects are encouraged to be interdisciplinary and broad, encompassing various factors like environmental influences, population dynamics, genetics of vectors and hosts, pathogen physiology or behavior affecting transmission, and the socio-economic aspects of disease spread. The program supports research on a wide range of pathogens and hosts, across different ecosystems, and is particularly interested in studies that address public health concerns in Low- or Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and agricultural systems. Proposals should aim to integrate knowledge across disciplines by including a diverse team of experts from various fields.