United Kingdom
Dr Robin Thompson is an expert in infectious disease epidemic modelling at the University of Warwick, UK. He leads a research group that is interested in developing and analysing mathematical models for guiding control interventions during outbreaks of pathogens in populations of humans, animals and plants.
In 2019, Robin helped to develop one of the main approaches used to estimate the “R number” – at a time when no-one had heard of the R number! In January 2020, Robin wrote one of the first scientific research articles about the COVID-19 pandemic, when cases had only been observed in China. This research highlighted the pandemic potential of the novel coronavirus, indicated the need for rigorous surveillance and interventions to prevent global transmission. It was selected as one of the World Health Organization’s “must read” publications in February 2020.
Since then, Robin’s research has continued to focus on COVID-19, including conducting research for the UK Government advisory group SPI-M. He has been interviewed on the radio and television about infectious disease epidemic modelling, and featured in newspapers and magazines including Time Magazine and New Scientist. One of Robin’s public lectures about epidemic modelling has been viewed over 100,000 times across different platforms.
Robin enjoys travelling, and he collaborates with researchers and policy advisors in countries including USA and Japan. When not doing research, Robin enjoys playing cricket.