Alison P. Galvani (born ca. 1977) is an American

epidemiologist Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and risk factor, determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decision ...

. She is the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology at the

Yale School of Public Health The Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) was founded in 1915 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow and is one of the oldest public health masters programs in the United States. It is consistently rated among the best schools of public health in the cou ...

and the Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis. She became interested in biology after reading

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biologist and author. He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. An ath ...

' ''

The Blind Watchmaker ''The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design'' is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selecti ...

'' in high school. She wrote Dawkins and he replied, encouraging her to apply to

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. She earned a degree in biological sciences from Oxford and continued her studies there, receiving a PhD in theoretical epidemiology. The focus of Galvani's research is the application of

evolutionary ecology Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them. Conversely, it can ...

and epidemiology in the study of diseases. She has published over 160 scholarly articles. Galvani directs the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis (CIDMA) since 2013. In 2014 she and her team published a series of papers covering the ongoing Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa. She was named the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Public Health in 2015. She is the youngest faculty member in Yale School of Medicine's history to be appointed to a named professorship.

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president. ...

, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described Dr. Galvani as an international star in the field of modelling of infectious diseases and commented on her research contributions as

“She has made major contributions in our understanding of the dynamics and impact of a variety of infectious diseases outbreaks including HIV/AIDS, Zika, Ebola, and influenza, among many others and now most recently COVID-19. It has been a pleasure to have her as an esteemed colleague and friend.”

Awards and honors

*2005 – Young Investigator Prize ( American Society of Naturalists) *2006 – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award *2007 – MacMillan Award *2007 – Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin fellowship *2012 – Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists *2013 – Bellman Prize

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Galvani, Alison P. 1970s births Living people American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists Yale University faculty Alumni of the University of Oxford American women academics 21st-century American women