Supervisory team
LSHTM: Sebastian Funk
Imperial: Anne Cori
PHE: Edwin van Leeuwen
Project
Infectious disease outbreaks cause substantial burden in communities and healthcare settings. This research project will elucidate key drivers of outbreak spread and healthcare demand surges, integrating these insights into forecasting and modelling/evaluation of mitigation approaches. It will strengthen the UK's capacity to respond to an outbreak of a novel pathogen like a flu pandemic or coronavirus outbreak, as well as seasonal outbreaks of viruses like norovirus and influenza. The successful applicant will be part of the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health at LSHTM as well as the Modelling and Economics Unit at PHE. The applicant will also join the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases at LSHTM. The training programme will develop research skills in Bayesian evidence synthesis, statistical inference, real-time analysis of complex datasets and scientific programming.

The principal supervisor will be Dr. Sebastian Funk, Associate Professor in Infectious Disease Modelling. Dr. Funk is a leading researcher in the epidemiology of infectious disease outbreaks, with a particular interest in the dynamic interaction of diseases with behavioural, societal and environmental factors, as well as strategies for disease eradication. The student will also be advised by Edwin van Leeuwen from PHE and Anne Cori from Imperial College London.

Specific eligibility criteria:

• Masters degree (or equivalent training) in a quantitative subject, preferably epidemiology, statistics or mathematics
• Strong interest in infectious disease modelling
• Ability to program in R, or any other programming language and a strong desire to learn.