Research & papers

My research group focuses on how human behaviour and immunity shape infectious disease outbreaks, and how knowledge of such processes can improve surveillance and control measures. This work covers established infections like seasonal influenza and dengue fever, as well as more recent outbreaks such as Ebola and Zika.

• First, we're working on new ways to gather data on patterns of behaviour, and incorporate it into outbreak analysis. What type of social behaviour drives disease transmission, and how can we measure it?

• Second, we tackle questions relating to disease control, projecting the impact of control measures during outbreaks, and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions afterwards. Which factors influence the transmission and containment of emerging infectious diseases?

• Third, we're interested in combining mathematical models with surveillance and serological data to improve our understanding of outbreaks. What can contemporary data tell us about antibody responses and infection dynamics?

If these are the sort of questions you're interested in working on, either as a graduate student or a postdoctoral fellow, please get in touch with a brief outline of your background and experience.

 

Publications

 

2020


Implication of backward contact tracing in the presence of overdispersed transmission in COVID-19 outbreaks

Reconstructing the early global dynamics of under-ascertained COVID-19 cases and infections

Using serological data to understand unobserved SARS-CoV-2 risk in health-care settings

Using a real-world network to model localized COVID-19 control strategies

The effectiveness of social bubbles as part of a Covid-19 lockdown exit strategy: a modelling study

Effectiveness of isolation, testing, contact tracing and physical distancing on reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in different settings: a mathematical modelling study

Estimating the time-varying reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 using national and subnational case counts

Estimating the overdispersion in COVID-19 transmission using outbreak sizes outside China

The effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 cases, deaths and demand for hospital services in the UK: a modelling study

Inferring the number of COVID-19 cases from recently reported deaths

Contacts in context: large-scale setting-specific social mixing matrices from the BBC Pandemic project

School’s out—balancing childcare needs of key workers with COVID infection control

Estimating the infection and case fatality ratio for COVID-19 using age-adjusted data from the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship

The effect of control strategies that reduce social mixing on outcomes of the COVID-19 epidemic in Wuhan, China

Secondary attack rate and superspreading events for SARS-CoV-2

Early dynamics of transmission and control of COVID-19: a mathematical modelling study

Feasibility of controlling 2019-nCoV outbreaks by isolation of cases and contacts

Probabilistic reconstruction of measles transmission clusters from routinely collected surveillance data

serosolver: an R package to infer viral epidemiological and immunological dynamics from serological data

Comparison of effectiveness of various live poultry market interventions on the epidemic of human infection with avian influenza A H7N9 virus across five waves

Estimated effectiveness of traveller screening to prevent international spread of COVID-19

Zika virus seroprevalence declines and neutralizing antibodies wane in adults following outbreaks in French Polynesia and Fiji

2019


Bias correction methods for test-negative designs in the presence of misclassification

Quantifying transmission of emerging zoonoses: Using mathematical models to maximize the value of surveillance data

Fine-scale family structure shapes influenza transmission risk in households: insights from a study of primary school students in Matsumoto city, 2014/15

Low chikungunya virus seroprevalence two years after emergence in Fiji

The measles crisis in Europe — the need for a joined-up approach

Estimating the burden of dengue in Indonesia and the impact of Wolbachia.

Guiding vaccine efficacy trial design during public health emergencies: an interactive web-based decision support tool

Sustained low-level transmission of Zika and chikungunya viruses following emergence in the Fiji Islands

Determinants of transmission risk during the late stage of the West African Ebola epidemic

Ross River virus antibody prevalence in the Fiji Islands, 2013-2015

Assessing the performance of real-time epidemic forecasts: A case study of Ebola in the Western Area region of Sierra Leone, 2014-15

Real-time analysis of the diphtheria outbreak in forcibly displaced Myanmar nationals in Bangladesh

2018


Projecting the end of the Zika virus epidemic in Latin America: a modelling analysis

Timescales of influenza A/H3N2 antibody dynamics

Using paired serology and surveillance data to quantify dengue transmission and control during a large outbreak in Fiji

Identifying human encounters that shape the transmission of streptococcus pneumoniae and other respiratory infections

Structure and consistency of self-reported social contact networks in British secondary schools

Characteristics of human encounters and social mixing patterns relevant to infectious diseases spread by close contact: a survey in southwest Uganda

2016


Real-time dynamic modelling for the design of a cluster-randomized phase 3 Ebola vaccine trial in Sierra Leone

Comparative analysis of dengue and Zika outbreaks reveals differences by setting and virus

Real-time forecasting of infectious disease dynamics with a stochastic semi-mechanistic model

Study epidemiology of fake news

Modelling the transmission dynamics of online social contagion

Low risk of a sexually-transmitted Zika virus outbreak

Transmission dynamics of Zika virus in island populations: a modelling analysis of the 2013–14 French Polynesia outbreak

The effect of community-based prevention and care on Ebola transmission in Sierra Leone

Effectiveness of ring vaccination as control strategy for Ebola virus disease

2015


Estimating the probability of demonstrating vaccine efficacy in the declining Ebola epidemic: a Bayesian modelling approach

Duration of Ebola virus RNA persistence in semen of survivors: population-level estimates and projections

Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1976-2014

Measuring the impact of Ebola control measures in Sierra Leone

The role of superspreading in Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) transmission

School’s Out: Seasonal Variation in the Movement Patterns of School Children

Characterizing the Transmission Potential of Zoonotic Infections from Minor Outbreaks

Transmission Potential of Influenza A(H7N9) Virus, China, 2013–2014

Capturing the dynamics of pathogens with many strains

Estimating the life course of influenza A(H3N2) antibody responses from cross-sectional data

Effectiveness of traveller screening for emerging pathogens is shaped by epidemiology and natural history of infection

Temporal changes in Ebola transmission in Sierra Leone and implications for control requirements: a real-time modelling study

2014


Evaluation of the Benefits and Risks of Introducing Ebola Community Care Centers, Sierra Leone

Five challenges in modelling interacting strain dynamics

Potential for large outbreaks of Ebola virus disease

Case fatality rate for Ebola virus disease in west Africa

Cross-immunity and age patterns of influenza A(H5N1) infection

The contribution of social behaviour to the transmission of influenza A in a human population

Distinguishing Between Reservoir Exposure and Human-to-Human Transmission for Emerging Pathogens Using Case Onset Data

2011


Influenza emergence in the face of evolutionary constraints