I am an associate professor in LSHTM’s Clinical Research Department and the lead scientist of the LSHTM Global Health Analytics Group. Originally trained as a laboratory scientist, the majority of my work is now highly multi-disciplinary, focused on research methodology, research about data and technological innovations for bench, field and computer based methods for public good.

As a research methodologist, I am particularly interested in understanding how emerging technology can be leveraged for the benefit of human health. Drawing on a diverse skills set, I apply mixed methods from epidemiology, laboratory sciences, data science & analytics to a broad range of public health problems. Current focus-points of my work centre on the development of electronic data systems for use in health emergencies and epidemics, on scalable low-cost laboratory diagnostics and on methods for integrated surveillance of infectious diseases. Through funding from the NIHR and DHSC, my group has recently been providing data collection and real time analytics support to two major evaluations of Ebola vaccines in DR Congo.

I was the principal investigator of the NIHR funded Emergency and Epidemic Data Kit project, which won the 2018 LSHTM Director's Award for Best Research Group and the 2017 LSHTM Director's Award for innovation in teaching and learning. I was also a co-investigator and senior data coordinator on the flagship "Tujiokowe" (DRC-EB-001) trial, a major evaluation of Janssen pharmaceuticals' heterologous two dose ebola vaccine, which was funded by a £22m grant from CEPI.

I was a co-investigator and lead of two work-packages on FIEBRE, a £10m UK Government (FCDO/UKAID) funded study on the causes of fever in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs). I am also the principal investigator of the lab based Mos-Def study, a sister study to FIEBRE which is funded by a £360,000 grant from GHLabs (formerly The Global Good Fund).

I previously led a major programme of research in to the epidemiology of trachoma in the Western Pacific Region, research that was funded by more than £800,000 in grants from the International Trachoma Initiative, Fred Hollows Foundation, Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust and Coalition for Operational Research on NTDs (COR-NTD). This work supported ministries of health in Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Kiribati and Papua New Guinea in their very successful public health programmes which aim to elimination of trachoma as a public health problem.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, my work moved in another new direction and I am currently focussing on research to better understand the opportunities, barriers and methods that can facilitate high quality mixed methods (qual/quant) research during health emergencies. The next phase of this work will look at the ethics of online survey based research and at how machine learning can support rapid analysis of anthropological data during health crises.

A substantial focus of my current work is the development of novel methods for data collection, processing, management and governance in global health research. Working exclusively in the open-source domain, I use emerging software and hardware to implement novel platforms for data science. This includes the creation of code which is available on my github repositories at https://github.com/chrissyhroberts/ and https://github.com/LSHTM-ORK