Meaghan Kall is an epidemiologist at the

UK Health Security Agency The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is a government agency in the United Kingdom, responsible since April 2021 for England-wide public health protection and infectious disease capability, and replacing Public Health England. It is an executiv ...

. In 2021 the journal ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...

'' named her in ''Nature'''s 10, their global top ten list of people who helped shape science that year.

Early life and education

Kall grew up in a small, conservative town in

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. Kall completed a

bachelor of science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

in nutrition science at Michigan State University and master of health science at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

. She is completing her doctorate at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. Her doctoral thesis is ''National longitudinal survey of healthcare needs and risk behaviours of HIV positive people'' and is being supervised by Richard Gilson.

Career

She worked from 2009 to 2020 as a civil servant at

Public Health England Public Health England (PHE) was an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care in England which began operating on 1 April 2013 to protect and improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. Its formation came as a ...

tracking

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

. In 2020 she was drafted into the UK government's

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

response. Her role was as a senior epidemiologist producing data within technical briefing documents and also communicating this information, including to the public. In 2021 she attracted a following on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

for her threads explaining epidemiological data. Her adoption of Twitter for public science communication was seen as particularly effective even though this was not part of her official employment. In January 2021, Kall was appointed lead epidemiologist in the COVID-19 Epidemiology cell at the UK Health Security Agency.

Recognition

Kall was included in a list of ten scientists who had had important roles in scientific developments in 2021 compiled by the scientific journal ''Nature.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kall, Meaghan Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Scientists from Michigan American epidemiologists American women epidemiologists Public Health England United Kingdom responses to the COVID-19 pandemic Science communicators