Understanding the spatial dynamics of infectious diseases is critical to target non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccines appropriately. The spatial scales of these interventions are governed by biological and behavioral factors and change depending on the underlying structure of the population. However, we lack basic understanding of the dynamic nature of these scales for emerging infectious diseases and how they may impact our decisions to optimally intervene to reduce mortality and morbidity.

The postholder will be responsible for processing large spatial datasets, conduct literature reviews and assist in the development of novel statistical and mathematical methods to better understand the role of human mobility and population structure in shaping the dynamics of human infectious diseases. There will be rich datasets at high spatial resolution from across the world to draw from. Much work will be directly communicated to policy makers to assist the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The RA will be embedded in a large collaborative project funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme and there will be plenty of opportunities to collaborate with researchers and policy makers from across the world.
Responsibilities
• Collect and process large spatial datasets relevant for infectious diseases (genomic, epidemiological)
• Consolidate geographic metadata and harmonize datasets across scales
• Manage own research and administrative activities, within guidelines provided by senior colleagues
• Contribute to wider project planning, including ideas for new research projects
• Gather, analyse, and present scientific data and insights to project partners and wider research community
• Lead scientific reports and journal articles and the presentation of data/papers at conferences
• Represent the research group at external meetings/seminars, either with other members of the group or alone