I am an interdisciplinary environmental health scientist and have always been drawn to working across disciplinary boundaries. I have degrees from the University of Cambridge (English Literature BA,MACantab); the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)/London School of Economics (LSE) (MSc); and the University of London (PhD in Environmental Epidemiology). I started work in a leprosy colony in Tamil Nadu, India when I was 18. After a degree in Cambridge University, I returned to work in a Tibetan Monastery in Himachal Pradesh, India. I then worked for WWF in Liberia, and came to a more conventional academic career after joining LSHTM in 1991.
Until 2012 I was full-time Reader of Ecology and Global Health at the LSHTM. I continue to work at LSHTM teaching specialist modules on both the in-house and distance learning MSc programme.
Since 2024 I am Full Professor of Environmental Ethics in the University of Primorska in Slovenia. I am also Professor (Hon) in the UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit of the Faculty of the Built Environment, working with architects and planners who are interested in understanding how their professions affect human health. I was formerly (2012-2017) Professor (Hon) of Equity and Global Health in the UCL Institute of Health Equity, and have also been Visiting Full Professor in the National University of Tucumán in Argentina (1999-2001 and 2009 -2017), and the Federal University of Parana in Brazil (2002-2005).
I am Fellow (by distinction) of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians, and International Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.
I am winner of the Royal Society Kohn Award for Excellence in Engagement of the Public in Science, and the Mayor of London Academic Excellence Award in Public Engagement.
Affiliations
Teaching
I have taught and examined interdisciplinary PhDs internationally for over 25 years, and was PhD programme director for my department in the Faculty of Public Health at LSHTM for 10 years. I have always supported universities internationally, including in Brazil and Argentina. I currently support the PhD programme of the Department of Disaster Public Health in the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran. In 2024 I have been appointed Professor of Ethics in the University of Primorska, Slovenia to support teaching on ethics, principally for the Faculty of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Information Technologies.
I also work closely with the UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), teaching on the newly launched MSc Health in Urban Development for architects and planners interested in health. This includes lectures on the Health, Social Justice and the City module; and Urban Health and Development Planning Strategies module of the new programme. I am also acting as International Advisor to the DPU Wellcome Trust project: Gaza the socio-politics of health, death and life.
Research
Most recently, I have been appointed to the Ethics Advisory Board of EU Horizons Programme, BEPREP, which aims to prevent future pandemics by studying and identifying best practices for biodiversity recovery and public health interventions that mitigate disease risk.
I am on the editorial board of multiple interdisciplinary international peer-reviewed journals. These include Environment and Urbanisation: Environmental Research Letters; Research in Ecology, Sustainability, and Environmental Development. I was on the founding editorial board of three journals and particularly support on-line and open access publishing.
I sit on the research grants award boards for several UK research councils including, currently, the UK Economic and Social Research Council and the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Selected Publications
