Azra Ghani | |
|---|---|
| Born | Azra Catherine Hilary Ghani |
| Alma mater | Imperial College London University of Southampton University of Cambridge |
| Scientific career | |
| Institutions | Imperial College London University of Oxford London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine |
| Thesis | Sexual partner networks and the epidemiology of gonorrhoea (1997) |
Azra Catherine Hilary Ghani is a British epidemiologist who is a professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology atImperial College London. Her research considers the mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, includingmalaria,bovine spongiform encephalopathy andcoronavirus. She has worked with theWorld Health Organization on their technical strategy for malaria. She is associate director of theMRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis.[1]
Ghani was born to Feroz and Hilary Ghani.[citation needed] She studiedmathematics atNewnham College, Cambridge, at theUniversity of Cambridge, matriculating in 1989.[2][3] After graduating, she moved to theUniversity of Southampton to complete a master's degree inoperations research. She joinedImperial College London in 1993, where she researched the epidemiology ofgonorrhea andsexual partner networks.[4] After earning her doctorate Ghani moved to theUniversity of Oxford, where she was supported by aWellcome Trust fellowship. She moved to Imperial College London as aRoyal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Research Fellow.[5]
In 2005 Ghani was appointed to the faculty at theLondon School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Here she became interested in malaria, particularly the disease's complexity, and the need to understand many aspects of science and society to better control it.[5] She returned to Imperial College London in 2007, where she serves as Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Head of the Malaria Modelling Research Group.[5] Her research considers the epidemiology of infectious disease, includingmalaria,bovine spongiform encephalopathy,HIV,SARS andcoronavirus.[6] She develops mathematical models that can better describe the transmission dynamics of malaria, to visualise how it impacts both humans and mosquitoes, and use this insight to fight the disease.[6][7] Ghani serves on the malaria policy advisory committee of theWorld Health Organization.[6] She was elected to the spongiformencephalopathy advisory committee.[8]
In 2017 Ghani was elected to theAcademy of Medical Sciences.[9] Through her understanding of infectious diseases, Ghani looks to better inform public health interventions.[10] In 2020, during theCOVID-19 pandemic, Ghani reported self-isolation, home quarantine and social distancing could limit the number of UK deaths caused by thecoronavirus to 20,000.[11][12] She worked withNeil Ferguson to show that during the course of the pandemic, theNational Health Service would become overwhelmed by the number of cases.[11][13]
Ghani is a Fellow of theRoyal Statistical Society.[15]
She was appointedMember of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the2021 Birthday Honours for services to infectious disease control and epidemiological research.[16]
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