Dr. Bento is an assistant professor of infectious disease ecology in the Department of Public & Ecosystem Health at Cornell University. She leads a team of transdisciplinary researchers to shape, develop and coordinate integrative research into how data-driven modeling can end current and prevent future pandemics.

At the Bento Lab the approach is to develop theoretical models to understand how human and other animal systems behave generally, while simultaneously seeking to confront and validate models with data and make predictions. Her lab uses a combination of mathematical modelling, phylodynamic approaches and cutting-edge statistical inference techniques. Her focus is on developing coupled models (epi-econ, evo-eco) to holistically understand a system. With these methods she can make quantitative, testable predictions and confront process-based models with parallel data streams. This is the central premise of her lab’s research program and the common thread of her work.

Dr. Bento’s work has been published to peer-reviewed publications in PNAS, nature medicine, nature communication, Science Advances, PloS Computational Biology among other journals. Her research has been featured in interviews and reports in the popular media, including in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Nature, The Washington Post, The Guardian, National Public Radio, MSNBC, Today Show, Reuters, and Fox.