Brian Allan studies the consequences of environmental change, including human land-use and climate change, for human exposure to vector-borne diseases (those transmitted by vector arthropods such as tick and mosquitoes). He is an associate professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he is also a University Scholar, and an Early Career Fellow of the Ecological Society of America.

After completing a bachelor's degree in biology and zoological anthropology at the University of Michigan, Allan completed a Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology and Population Biology at Washington University in St. Louis. Throughout his career his research has focused on how human modification of the environment, including through deforestation and introduction of invasive species, alters the ecology of vector-borne diseases. The findings of his research have been published in journals including Nature Sustainability and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.