Meet the team

The people behind this event

Organisers

  • Amrish Baidjoe (RECON / EAN): researcher and consultant in health emergencies operational support, research and capacity building, president of the EAN and vice-president of RECON. Amrish has extensive field experience, and has spent the last months working with WHO on the Rohingya refugees crisis. Course organiser and trainer.

  • Celine Barnadas (EAN): co-treasurer of EAN, Celine has a background in applied research and public health microbiology; she is currently working for the WHO. She is handling logistics and treasury aspects for this course.

  • Thibaut Jombart (LSHTM / ICL / UKPHRST / RECON / EAN): Associate Professor in Outbreak Analytics at LSHTM, Senior Lecturer in Genetic Analysis at Imperial College London, and president of RECON. Main developer of the data analytics pipeline used to inform the response to Ebola in North Kivu, DRC. Course organiser and main trainer for the advanced course on outbreak analytics.

  • Claire Thomson (ICL / RECON): manager of the NIHR-HPRU for modelling methodology hosted at Imperial College London, Claire has a background in clinical and public health research. She is an executive board member for RECON and has been instrumental in organising a number of RECON events. She is handling logistics for these short courses.

Trainers

  • Amy Gimma (LSHTM): Research Fellow in Outbreak Analytics, Amy is a trained nurse with field experience, an infectious disease epidemiologist and a professional software developer. She was recently deployed as a member of the analytics cell for the Ebola response in North Kivu, DRC, and is involved in a development of methods and software tools for outbreak response analytics.

  • Mara Kont (ICL): Research Assistant in infectious disease modelling, Mara has a background in biomedical sciences and a Master in Public Health, and currently works on Malaria modelling.

  • Christopher Jarvis (LSHTM / RECON / MAPACTION / UKPHRST): Research Fellow in Statistical Epidemiology, member of Map Action and RECON, Chris has been on several field deployments in response to health emergencies, including recently as a core member of the analytics cell for the Ebola response in North Kivu, DRC.

  • David Jorgensen (ICL): PhD student in infectious disease modelling, David specialises in estimating transmission dynamics of poliovirus in Pakistan and Afghanistan using genetic data. He is also involved in strengthening capacity and risk assessment in response to the current expansion in polio cases in Pakistan.

  • Alexander Spina (RECON / EAN): Field epidemiologist and consultant in epidemiological analysis using R, Alex has been a key developer of the R4epi project, a collaboration between MSF and RECON aiming to provide powerful, user-friendly analysis templates for field epidemiologists.

  • Lilith Whittles (ICL): Research Associate in Infectious Disease Modelling, Lilith specialises in transmission dynamics modelling and has worked on a variety of bacterial pathogens including bubonic plague and super-gonorrhoea.