Neil Ferguson

Neil Ferguson is a prominent British epidemiologist and professor of mathematical biology at Imperial College London. He specializes in modeling the spread of infectious diseases in humans and animals.13

Professional Roles

Ferguson holds several key positions at Imperial College London:

• Director of the School of Public Health (since August 2023)2
• Director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit for Modelling Methodology (since April 2014)2
• Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology (since March 2012)2
• Director of the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling (since January 2007)2
• Founding director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis1
• Director of the Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA)3

Research and Expertise

Ferguson's work focuses on:

• Mathematical and statistical modeling of infectious disease processes1
• Studying patterns of spread for various diseases, including COVID-19, Ebola, influenza, SARS, BSE/vCJD, HIV, dengue, and foot-and-mouth disease13
• Providing data analysis and advice to governments, the World Health Organization, and other bodies on emerging infections and infectious disease epidemiology13

Education and Honors

Ferguson received his education from the University of Oxford:

• MA in Physics (1987-1990)2
• DPhil in Theoretical Physics (1990-1994)2

He is an international member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences.1

Career Highlights

Throughout his career, Ferguson has been involved in modeling and analyzing several major disease outbreaks, including:

• The 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak
• The 2009 swine flu outbreak in the UK
• The 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak
• The 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in Western Africa
• The COVID-19 pandemic3

His work has been instrumental in shaping public health policies and responses to these outbreaks.