How diseases spread through a population is often influenced by people’s movements and social behaviour. However, high resolution data linking social interactions, movements, and personal characteristics is extremely rare. In 2017/18, the massive BBC4 Contagion! citizen science project generated the largest dataset of this kind to be made openly available to researchers. Supervised by Dr Petra Klepac, Dr Adam Kucharski and Professor Graham Medley, this project will combine this new dataset with mathematical models of infectious disease dynamics to examine the implications of behaviour and movements within a population on the dynamics and control of respiratory infections such as pandemic influenza, measles and tuberculosis.

The student will develop skills and experience in infectious disease transmission modelling, big data analysis, statistical inference and modelling of control strategies relevant for public health in a global context.

The project will require some prior knowledge of epidemiology and statistics. Students would benefit from some experience with mathematical modelling and computer programming, for example with R, Python or Julia.

This is a potential PhD project under MRC London Intercollegiate Doctoral Studentship. To apply: http://mrc-lid.lshtm.ac.uk/apply/