Mercedes Pascual, PhD, is an Uruguayan theoretical ecologist. She earned her PhD in biological oceanography from a joint program of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a Professor at the University of Chicago, where she leads the Laboratory for Modeling and Theory in Ecology and Epidemiology. Pascual develops systems models for the study of complicated, irregular cycles in ecosystems, using mathematical, statistical and computational approaches. She has discovered relationships between El Niño climate patterns and the occurrence of cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh, evidence that shows global climate change effecting an infectious disease. In 2019, Pascual was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
