Peter George Smith (born 3 May 1942)

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

BSc 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 of ...

DSc DSC may refer to: Academia * Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) * District Selection Committee, an entrance exam in India * Doctor of Surgical Chiropody, superseded in the 1960s by Doctor of Podiatric Medicine Educational institutions * Dalton State Col ...

HonMFPHM FMedSci, is an eminent

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 ...

and Professor of Tropical Epidemiology at the

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is a public research university in Bloomsbury, central London, and a member institution of the University of London that specialises in public health and tropical medicine. The inst ...

(LSHTM).

Background

Peter Smith graduated in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

from

City University, London City, University of London, is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, and a member institution of the federal University of London. It was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute, and became a university when The City Univ ...

and joined the Medical Research Council's Statistical Research Unit in 1965. He went on to work on various aspects of epidemiological and statistical research including: MRC Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Research Unit, Edinburgh (1967–69); Makerere University Medical School, Uganda (1970–71); International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France and Uganda (1971–72); Imperial Cancer Research Fund Cancer Epidemiology Unit, Oxford (1972–79). He joined LSHTM in 1979 to head the Tropical Epidemiology Unit. In 1987 he was placed at the

Harvard School of Public Health The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the public health school of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. The school grew out of the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, the nation's first ...

, Boston and was also involved in the Tropical Diseases Research Programme of WHO in that year. He headed the Department of Epidemiology and Population Sciences at the LSHTM from 1990-96. In 1997 the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases was formed at the LSHTM, which he headed until 2002. He is currently Professor of Tropical Epidemiology.

Other Appointments

*Governor of the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

*Member of the Partnership Board of the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership. *Deputy Chair of the

Nuffield Council on Bioethics The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is a UK-based independent charitable body, which examines and reports on bioethical issues raised by new advances in biological and medical research. Established in 1991, the Council is funded by the Nuffield F ...

. *He serves on a number of advisory committees of the World Health Organisation and of the UK Government. *He serves as Chair of the Programme Board for Global Health and Vaccination Research (GLOBVAC),

Research Council of Norway The Research Council (also the Research Council of Norway; no, Norges forskningsråd) is a Norwegian government agency that funds research and innovation projects. On behalf of the Government, the Research Council invests NOK 11,9 billion (2021) ...

for the period 2011–17.Programme Board for Global Health and Vaccination Research
Visited 05.04.2016.

Research

Research interests include large-scale intervention studies against tropical diseases, including vaccine trials. Peter has also been involved in recent years in research on the link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans. From 1996 to 2004 he served on the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, which advises the UK government on BSE and related issues. He was the acting chair of the committee from 1999–2001 and was the chair from August 2001 to July 2004. He also serves on a number of international committees relating to intervention studies against some of the major tropical diseases.Information
at

Honours and awards

Peter Smith received professional recognition with the presentation of: *

Donald Reid Medal The Donald Reid Medal is awarded triennially by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in recognition of distinguished contributions to epidemiology. Institution The medal was instituted in 1979 in memory of Professor Donald Reid who w ...

for

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

in 2003. He was honoured with: *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Peter British epidemiologists Donald Reid Medalists Harvard University staff Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) 1942 births Living people