Abstract: We will introduce a coupled PDE-ODE system that describes the interactions between the susceptible (S) and infected (I) hosts, the pathogen (Z) that affects them and the food resource (A) of both classes of hosts. The model is a 4-dimensional system of 3 ODES and 1 PDE. We are interested in investigating the effect of host mortality (such as background mortality, disease induced mortality, predation) on the disease dynamics (equilibrium vs. oscillations) and metrics of disease such as the basic reproductive number R0 and prevalence. We will discuss the stability and bifurcations of the system and show that the interplay among the various types of mortality generates interesting behavior in our model. All biological terms will be defined, so no prior knowledge from biology is required. Introductory graduate ODE and PDE courses suffice for this talk.