Our new Associate Professor are:
- Jerome Kelleher is a computational scientist and geneticist in the Big Data Institute. He has been a member of the NDM since 2014 and a Robertson Fellow since 2019. Jerome trained in computer science at the University of Cork (BSc 2002 and PhD 2005); he was then a software architect in data storage and held a post in population genetics at the University of Edinburgh; finally, he joined Gil McVean’s group in the BDI and then established his own group in the BDI. His outputs have transformed several areas of computational genetics. He has made important advances through the development of algorithms to infer patterns of inheritance, which have been critical for realising the potential of the UK Biobank and other resources.
- Nicola Whiffin has been a Sir Henry Dale and Group Leader in the Big Data Institute and Junior Research Fellow at St Anne’s College since 2020. She graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2010 and completed her PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research in 2014. She then held postdoctoral positions at Imperial College, the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and Sanger Institute. She has also held a visiting scholar position at the Board Institute since 2018. Nicola’s research uses computational approaches to identify novel variants causing rare disease.
- Anthony Etyang has been a research scientist at the University of Oxford’s KEMRI-Wellcome programme in Kilifi, Kenya since 2014. He is the Head of the Epidemiology and Demography within the programme, in which he plays a critical role in the development of its strategic direction and planning. Anthony qualified in medicine at the University of Nairobi in 2004 and completed a PhD at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2018. Before joining the KEMRI-Wellcome programme, he was a consultant physician and epidemiologist in Kilifi and at the Kenyatta National Hospital in the University of Nairobi.
- Mainga Hamaluba has been Head of Clinical Research at University of Oxford’s KEMRI-Wellcome programme in Kilifi, Kenya since 2017. Mainga qualified in medicine in the University of Aberdeen in 2001 and later trained as a junior doctor in paediatrics in Oxford, completing her MD in the Oxford Vaccine Group in 2017. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (FRCPCH). In her role as Head of Clinical Research, Mainga has consistently played a unique and critical role in organising and driving clinical research trials across a broad range of high impact studies. These include research into the treatment of snake-bite, the use of the Oxford-AZ vaccine in Kenya, the R21 malaria vaccine in Africa and multi-valent pneumococcal vaccine in Nepal, and the use of oxygen supplementation in children pneumonia in Uganda and Africa. She led the development of the most used malaria infection challenge model for the development of new treatment globally and a shigella infection model; and she is currently creating a unique platform for the study of vaccination and critical and new born care in Africa.
- Sonia Lewycka has been the Senior Epidemiologist at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) in Vietnam since 2016. She graduated from the University of Cambridge in Natural Sciences in 1998 and completed a PhD in Epidemiology at the Institute for Global Health at UCL in 2011. Before joining the University of Oxford, she held senior research posts in the University of New South Wales and Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland. Sonia’s research encompasses disease monitoring, surveillance and interventions to address antimicrobial use and resistance in Vietnam, the impact of climate change on infectious disease, and observational and interventional to address maternal, child and youth mortality in LMICs.
- Bob (Robert) Taylor has been a clinical researcher in the Nuffield Department of Medicine’s Mahidol Oxford Research Unit in Thailand since 2006. He qualified in medicine at the University of London in 1981 and trained as a clinical fellow in Boston in the 1990’s during the height of the HIV pandemic. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and a Specialist in Infectious Diseases and is dual accredited in the UK and Switzerland. He continues to work and teach clinically at the Service de Médecine Tropicale et Humanitaire aux Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève. Before joining MORU, he was linked to the Unit through his role within the WHO, where he was pioneering efforts to tackle influenza and address bird ‘flu outbreaks in Asia. Bob is distinguished by having designed and run the clinical studies of the safety and efficacy of artemisinin combination therapy (ACT) in Africa, providing evidence that led to the 2006 WHO recommendation that this should be first line treatment for falciparum malaria. His more recent research contributions have included work on the elimination of malaria and treatment of vivax malaria and the safety of primaquine in G6PD deficiency. Many of his impacts have been of global significance.
Many congratulations to all!