Institutions

This project is a collaboration between scientists scattered across the globe - from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) in Nairobi, and the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia (UPCH) in Lima, Peru.

Agriculture and Infectious Disease Group, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine - London, UK

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is renowned globally for its public health research; the Agriculture and Infectious Disease Group is a mulitdisciplinary team within the School, addressing research questions related to disease in agricultural landscapes and global challenges in agriculture and health. The group is part of CGIAR's Agriculture for Nutrition and Health research centre (A4NH).

Health Innovation Laboratory, Institute of Tropical Medicine “Alexander von Humboldt”, Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia - Lima, Peru

The laboratory is a multidisciplinary space to design and evaluate innovative and accessible technologies to improve people's health. Research subjects include finding new sources of information for the studying of infectious diseases, applying geographical techniques to understand disease dynamics in rural and urban areas, and developing new and accessibile technologies for the study, detection and diagnosis of infectious diseases.

International Livestock Research Institute - Nairobi, Kenya

ILRI is an international not-for-profit research centre, co-hosted in Kenya and Ethiopia, with the mission of improving food and nutritional security and reducing poverty in developing countries through conducting world-leading research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock. Their animal and human health research program seeks to combat infectious diseases that matter to the poor; the generation and use of knowledge and technologies to help manage zoonotic, livestock and food-borne diseases leads to higher incomes for farmers, and better health and nutrition for humans and animals.

People

Dr Bernard Bett (ILRI)

Bernard Bett is a vet and epidemiologist, and co-leads research on emerging infectious diseases at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI). His research interests lie in the impact of climate, land use and biodiversity on infectious diseases, especially those shared between animals and people. He is establishing ILRI’s One Health Centre, which will bring people from across disciplines together to work on problems that encompass them all – just like our Rift Valley Fever work, which ties animal and human health to ecological factors.

Gabriel Carrasco-Escobar (UPCH)

Gabriel Carrasco is currently an associate researcher and co-director of the Health Innovation Laboratory at UPCH in Peru. He earned his MS in Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, UPCH and is now a PhD candidate in Public Health at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His research is interested on focused on how environmental factors are linked to the epidemiology of infectious diseases, and how technologies like remote sensing can help us learn about the distribution and risk factors of tropical diseases and the impact of public health interventions.
http://gcarrasco.rbind.io/

Dr Hugo Alatrista-Salas (UCPH)

Hugo Alatrista-Salas os a computer scientist with a background in using these skills for environmental and public health applications. Currently, he is a research professor at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.

Professor Jo Lines (LSHTM)

Jo Lines is Professor of Malaria Control and Vector Biology at LSHTM, and has worked on practical methods for controlling malaria for much of his career. Currently, he is heading a research programme looking at interactions between health and agriculture, especially the the effects of agricultural landscapes on vector borne diseases - for example, the relationship between livestock distribution and Rift Valley Fever!

Dr Joel Lutomiah

Joel Lutomiah is a medical entomologist, and deputy director of the Centre for Virus Research at the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI). He is an expert in haemorrhagic fevers and vector-borne viral diseases (like Rift Valley Fever!) with decades of research experience. His current projects include the monitoring of mosquito populations and investigation of risk factors that drive vector-borne disease outbreaks in Kenya.

Dr Kimberly Fornace (LSHTM)

Kimberly Fornace is an epidemiologist working at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University of Glasgow. Her research uses tools such as drones, satellites, GPS data and thermal cameras to understand how diseases spread from animals to people. She is interested in how landscape impacts infectious disease transmission in different settings – from monkey malaria in the jungles of Borneo to Rift Valley Fever in Kenya!

Dr Miguel Nunez-del-Prado (UCPH)

Miguel Nunez-del-Prado is a computer scientist and a lecturer at the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru. His research uses data science to address a broad range of issues, from climate events to data privacy to consumer behaviour.

Steph Key (LSHTM)

Steph Key is a research assistant at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a background in ecology & conservation biology, and an MSc in One Health. She is interested in how the ecology of landscapes impacts the transmission of infectious diseases (for example, predicting where animals that carry Rift Valley Fever like to hang out!), especially in the context of a changing global environment.