Real-time Arbovirus Detection And Response
The VB RADAR Team
Dr Arran J. Folly - Principal investigator
Arran is a senior research scientist at the Animal and Plant Health Agency in Weybridge, with responsibility for running and undertaking research linked to the arbovirus National Reference Laboratories. He is especially interested in insect disease ecology and has investigated a range of insect specific pathogens and insect transmitted zoonotic pathogens. His main research focus is understanding the interface between pathogens, their hosts, and the environment.
Dr Becki Lawson Co-investigator
Becki is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Zoology. She began working with treatment and rehabilitation of British wildlife casualties and subsequently focused on disease investigation in various terrestrial and marine species. She currently co-ordinates the Garden Wildlife Health project, a national disease surveillance programme for amphibians, reptiles, garden birds and hedgehogs. Her research interest focuses on the epidemiology and impact of disease on free-living wildlife populations.
Dr Jolyon Medlock Co-investigator
Jolyon leads the Medical Entomology group at the UK Health Security Agency, advising UK government on vector-borne disease risk, managing UK-wide vector surveillance systems and undertaking research on mosquito borne-disease. He has more than 25 years of experience on vector-borne diseases, working in the UK, mainland Europe, Caribbean and Africa.
Dr Rob A. Robinson Co-investigator
Rob is the associate director of research at the British Trust for Ornithology. He has over 20 years of experience in avian population ecology, working to understand changes in bird populations and distributions by quantifying spatial and temporal variation in demographic rates in a range of species and scales. This has included developing the application of new techniques, particularly modelling that involves the integration of different data sources including large-scale citizen science collected data.
Prof Andrew Cunningham Researcher
Andrew is Professor of Wildlife Epidemiology & Deputy Director of Science at the Institute of Zoology. Andrew's area of research aims to identify disease threats to wildlife conservation and how to prevent or mitigate these. This includes the mitigation of human-driven disease transmission (or spill-over) between species, including from wild animals to people.
Alexander Vaux Researcher
Alexander is a Medical Entomologist based at the UK Health Security Agency, with over 20 years experience as an ecologist, including 13 years focusing on the ecology of vectors in relation to vector-borne disease. He is responsible for leading projects and providing strategic advice on vector borne disease risk. He has a particular focus on invasive mosquitoes in the UK, leading on surveillance for invasive mosquitoes at over 50 locations across the country.
Dr Calam Bruce Researcher
Calam is a researcher at the Animal Plant and Health Agency in Weybridge. He has had several years experience working on medical and veterinary arthropod vectors and pathogens of significance. His primary areas of interest are the co-evolution of pathogen-host interactions, and the evolutionary and population dynamics of vector populations.
Dr Hugh Hanmer Researcher
Hugh is a Senior Research Ecologist in the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Terrestrial Ecology Team. His research primarily focuses on urban ecology and avian demography using long and short-term citizen science surveys alongside novel field surveys. He has a particular interest in human-wildlife interactions relating to UK garden birds, first started during his PhD at the University of Reading and continued at BTO.