What is your role at LSHTM?
I am a research fellow working with Prof. Paul Milligan as a statistician, based in Infectious Disease Epidemiology. I am based in London.

Tell us a bit about a project that you are currently working on?
The main project I’m working on is the Malaria Vaccine Pilot Evaluation which is WHO’s cluster-randomized study of the RTS,S/AS01 vaccine in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi and was designed to look at effectiveness and safety as the vaccine is implemented. Interim results from this study led WHO to approve wider rollout of the vaccine. Within the MVPE I also work on a nested case control study which will allow comparison of different numbers of vaccine doses and assessment of possible rebound effects.                      

When and how did you start working on malaria?
I started working on Malaria when I began this job at LSHTM. I previously studied the MSc in Medical Statistics at LSHTM and worked on methods related to a cluster-randomized Dengue trial for my master’s thesis. In terms of both trial design and vector-borne diseases, Malaria seemed a natural fit.

Before this I had worked as a human rights researcher and did graduate work on religion, theology, and colonialism. It seemed natural to be interested in public health. When I shifted professional directions LSHTM seemed an interesting place to study and work given how the intimacies of Britain’s colonial rule had led to its concentrating much of the world’s knowledge about health in the formerly colonized world.

Where are you from?
I grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah in the U.S., and spent time in rural Massachusetts and Philadelphia before hopping the Atlantic to Dublin and then London.

What’s your favourite place?
Salt Lake City, where I grew up, is surrounded by mountains. There are many mountain roads that close for the winter and with cross-country skis you can go for miles and miles… and see a lot of moose.

‘When I’m not working, I am…’
Learning other languages, reading, hiking.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
People make their own history but under conditions not of their own choosing.