Visiting professor speaks on math and epidemics

Roy Anderson

Dr. Roy Anderson, Linacre professor, head of zoology and director of the Wellcome Trust Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at Oxford University in England, is a Genentech Distinguished Professor this month in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine's Department of Biostatistics.

Anderson is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology and epidemic modeling. His contributions to scientific research include more than 300 publications in epidemiology, biomathematics, demography, parasitology and immunology.

He is best known as a mathematical modeler of epidemics, whose work has helped create international public health policy. His work has defined the current conceptual approach to designing interventions against many infectious diseases.

Anderson's work in modeling HIV and other epidemics is of particular interest to those involved with AIDS and sexually transmitted disease projects at the UW and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is giving a series of lectures this month on mathematical epidemiology, explaining the use of mathematical models in studying infectious disease epidemics.

He will give a special seminar, open to everyone, from 3 to 4:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 22, in room 316R of South Campus Center. The topic is "What We Know about the Transmission of New Infections: How Modeling Can Describe Them." The seminar is co-sponsored by the departments of Medicine and Epidemiology and the Emerging Infections Workgroup.

The Genentech Distinguished Professorship in Biostatistics was established in 1992 with an endowment from Genentech, Inc., a leading biotechnology company that focuses on pharmaceuticals produced by recombinant DNA technology. This is the second time the professorship has been awarded; the first Genentech professor was Dr. Lloyd Fisher, UW professor of biostatistics.