Research

Research themes

My research is based around the mathematical modelling of various public health topics, which I detail further below.

COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic begun during the final year of my DPhil, during which I and other colleagues conducted work into the optimal control of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), namely lockdowns. Examples of this work can be found on my publications page.

Simultaneously I worked within the Oxford Martin School’s Open COVID-19 Data Working Group to help curate an open-access database to track the increasing number of global COVID-19 cases.

Shortly after this I joined Imperial College London as a postdoc, where I am currently investigating spatial trends in UK COVID-19 infections using a mixture of CAR models and Gaussian Process approaches. I am also currently working within the real time modelling team to provide ongoing projections of the spread of COVID-19, examples of which are routinely released in SAGE minutes. I recently presented an entry-level talk describing this work to a Year 7 class, available here.

Foodborne Disease

My DPhil was focussed entirely on mathematical modelling of the bacteria Campylobacter within chicken flocks, a leading cause of food poisoning across the globe.

As part of this research I have published the first available mathematical model of Campylobacter dynamics within a flock, revealing the dynamic impact of bird-specific factors, and strengthening the call for a One Health approach to commercial broiler rearing. A talk on this model is available here.

Additionally, my work has identified the presence and impact of `super shedders’ within chicken flocks, explored the mechanisms of sustained Campylobacter strain coexistence within flocks, and investigated the impact of bird welfare on the emmergence of Campylobacter.

My thesis is available for download here.

Other

Other research projections include modelling of the optimal combination of vaccination and mosquito control in tackling dengue outbreaks, quantitative microbiological risk analysis of salmonellosis in the sheep meat food chain, and the use of actigraphy as a welfare measure for non-human primates.