Professor Ben Cooper

Professor Sir Peter Horby

Professor Christl Donnelly

Mark started his DPhil in 2021, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Protection Research Unit in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections.  He will be using mathematical modelling techniques to gain insight into transmission of high-consequence respiratory infections in healthcare settings, and to provide evidence for techniques to reduce their spread.  An early priority is to investigate the possible effects of waning immunity for people vulnerable to covid-19 as they enter winter about a year after vaccination.  

Previous experience

After graduating from medical school, Mark completed an academic foundation programme at the Royal Stoke University Hospital. He followed this with further hospital jobs in acute medicine, intensive care and infectious diseases, and three months on a conservation expedition in Madagascar. 

Mark joined the Thames Valley public health training programme in 2017.  During this, he completed his MSc dissertation with the Epidemic Research Group Oxford (ERGO), evaluating prognostic scores for acute respiratory infections.  His public health training has included leading a team improving health in workplaces, working in the local Public Health England health protection team, and placements with local authorities, meeting with elected members to talk about mental health and men’s health issues.  He also spent academic time in Oxford with the Health Economics Research Centre and The Global Health Network.  In 2020, he returned to ERGO to work with the International Severe Acute Respiratory and Emerging Infection Consortium as part of the global response to the covid-19 pandemic.

EDUCATION

Membership (MFPH), Faculty of Public Health

MSc Global Health Science, University of Oxford

MB ChB, University of Birmingham

BA Natural Sciences, University of Cambridge