SCI - Surveillance & Monitoring Unit Staff Profiles
Professor Joanne Webster
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SCI - Surveillance & Monitoring Unit Staff Profiles
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Joanne Webster is a Royal
Society University Research Fellow and Reader in Parasite Epidemiology. Her
main focus of research is into the ecology, evolution and coevolution of
host-schistosome interactions. This is performed through a combination of
both large scale field-based studies across Africa and Asia, and tightly
controlled experiments and analyses within the laboratory. The results
produced will be valuable in several respects, perhaps the most important
being that host-schistosome coevolution is clearly important for a proper
understanding of the long-term dynamics of infection and may help identify
where to focus disease control programmes. Before joining the SCI and
Imperial in 2003, Joanne had been based at the University of Oxford, where
she also gained her D.Phil. into host-parasite epidemiology and behaviour.
She was a Lecturer in Infectious Disease and Molecular Parasitology since
1997, and headed a schistosome research group since 1998. Joanne was made
Chair in Parasite Epidemiology in October 2006. 
Yaobi Zhang has spent many years working on the control
of schistosomiasis and other intestinal helminth infections after completing
his medical studies in China. He has a broad background in Epidemiology,
Parasitology and Molecular Biology. While in China he was engaged in a
variety of activities including research on the control strategies, field
control activities, and surveillance and monitoring for the schistosomiasis
control programme. He fully understands the threat posed by these parasites
and the need for their ultimate control. He came to UK in 1994 to carry out
schistosome vaccine research at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical
Medicine where he obtained his PhD and subsequently developed several
promising vaccine candidates against schistosomes. Before he joined SCI in
February 2005 he also worked on lymphatic filariasis at the Royal Veterinary
College. 
Artemis Koukounari graduated from the Athens
University of Economics & Business (Greece) with a BSc in Statistics in 2001
during which time she also gained some work experience in private and public
sector companies in Greece. During her undergraduate studies she attended
the ERASMUS program at the Department of Applied Mathematics in Social
Sciences at the University II in Montpellier (France) for one year. After
the completion of her BSc she worked at the Laboratory of Industrial and
Energy Economics of the National Technical University of Athens (Greece) as
a Research Fellow. In 2002 she moved to London where she completed an MSc in
Statistics at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Subsequently, Artemis worked for one year as a Statistician at the Kobler
Centre of the Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare Trust (London) where her
research interest moved towards the statistical analysis of medical data,
specialising in HIV/AIDS. Artemis presented these results at the XV
International AIDS conference in Thailand in July 2004. Artemis joined SCI
in October 2004.
Nadine
Seward graduated from Queen’s University in Canada with a BSc (Honours) in
Life Sciences in 1996. While living in Canada, Nadine worked in both the
public and private sectors as a researcher in the areas of HIV and mental
health. In London, she worked again as a researcher/analyst in both the
public and private sectors.
Michael
French graduated with a degree in Biology from Nottingham University in
1999. Following that he spent five years working in the private sector in
supply chain management and operations roles for PepsiCo. A career change in
2005 led to the MSc in Modern Epidemiology at Imperial College. As part of
this he carried out the data analysis of a helminth control project
operating on Unguja Island, Zanzibar, with colleagues from the Natural
History Museum. He followed this with some short-term consulting work for
the SCI helping to put together background papers for integrated control of
NTDs. In the summery of 2006 Mike undertook an internship at WHO in Geneva
within the StopTB partnership.