Andrew Spielman, 76; expert on diseases passed from insects to humans

Andrew Spielman, 76, a Harvard School of Public Health professor and a leading authority on diseases passed from insects to people, died Dec. 20 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston after being hospitalized with an undiagnosed illness.

Spielman’s research took him to remote areas of the world, and he wrote hundreds of publications on topics including malaria, Lyme disease and eastern equine encephalitis. He also co-wrote the 2001 book “Mosquito: A Natural History of Our Most Persistent and Deadly Foe.”

His contributions to the field included recognizing that the increase in Lyme disease cases was largely due to an explosion in the deer population, said Peter Krause, professor of pediatrics at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine.

Spielman was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island, N.Y. He got an undergraduate degree in zoology from Colorado College in Colorado Springs in 1952 and graduated with a doctorate in pathobiology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in 1956.

He worked with the Navy on mosquito control issues at Guantanamo, Cuba, before beginning his long association with Harvard in 1959.