Introduction

I hold a joint professorship in both the Mathematics Institute and the Department of Biological Sciences. My main area of interest is mathematical models of infectious diseases -- how they can be used and improved. My research group has been funded from a variety of sources including: BBSRC, EPSRC, Leverhulme Trust, NIH, NIH MIDAS, The Royal Society and The Wellcome Trust.

Research Interests

My research focuses on the three E's: Epidemiology, Evolution and Ecology. I am particularly interested in how spatial structure, heterogeneities and stochasticity affect the emergent population-level dynamics; as such my work uses a wide range of modelling tools and concepts. While large-scale simulations do play a substantial role in my work, I'm also very keen to develop simple modelling techniques that can capture the important dynamics of a system. The lists below give a flavour of my interests:

Epidemiology: Foot-and-mouth disease, Avian influenza, Measles, Whooping cough & other childhood infections, Bovine tuberculosis, Smallpox, Within-host immunological dynamics.

Evolution: Disease evolution,

Ecology: Bacteria-phage interactions, spatial habit-use.

Techniques: Pair-wise correlation models, Moment-closure approximations, Meta-population models, Kolmorgorov Forward Equations.

Publications & Achievements

Prizes.

Philip Leverhulme Prize in Mathematics (2005)

Royal Society Merit Increment (2000,2002,2004)

Royal Zoological Society of London, Scientific Medal (2007) 

Advisory Memberships.

Member of the government's scientific advisory group on foot-and-mouth (2001) .
Member of the G8 scientific advisory meeting on smallpox modelling (2002).
Member of Science Advisory Council, Exotic Diseases committee (2004-2005).
Member of Academic Advisory Panel for the DTI CBRN initiative (2004-  ).
Wellcome Trust, Basic Infection and Immunity Panel (2004-2007).

Editorial duties.

Major Editor, Theoretical Population Biology (2003- )
Editor, American Naturalist (2004-2007)