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New mathematical modeller

Posted 12th May 2021 by Dr. Penelope Hancock

It gives me great pleasure to join Target Malaria as a postdoctoral researcher in mathematical modelling for the team at Imperial College London. I have experience in modelling mosquito populations and how they respond to vector control.

Computer simulation of field releases of Wolbachia bacteria into mosquito populations in Cairns, Australia.

Prior to this role, I have worked on mathematical models of the mosquito life cycle and applied these to investigate novel vector control strategies including fungal entomopathogens and Wolbachia bacteria. This work began at Imperial College London at the NERC Centre for Population Biology, and later continued at the University of Oxford. Through this research I obtained a Marie Curie International Outgoing fellowship which allowed me to travel to Australia to perform experiments in field cages in order to parameterise and inform the models.

More recently, I joined the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP), where I used geospatial modelling approaches to develop maps of insecticide resistance in Anopheles malaria vectors on an Africa-wide scale. This involved modelling mosquito genetic variation across space and how this relates to different insecticide resistance phenotypes in field populations.

It feels great to be back with Imperial College where my malaria-related research journey started. I am really looking forward to being involved with the Target Malaria team and their exciting research.

When I am not trying to crack a code, I can be found at the Malaria Modelling Group in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis located at St Mary’s Campus of Imperial College London.

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