Nicola Perra

Nicola Perra is a Reader in Applied Mathematics at the School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London. Previously, he served as an Associate Professor in Network Science at the University of Greenwich, and held postdoctoral positions at Northeastern University and Indiana University. He earned his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Cagliari, Italy (2011).

Research Interests: Perra specializes in Network Science, Data Science, and Digital Epidemiology. His work focuses on modeling socio-technical systems, epidemic processes, and cyber threats. He develops mathematical frameworks to study dynamics on time-varying networks, with applications to infectious disease spread, behavioral epidemiology, and team performance analysis.

Key Contributions: Perra’s research bridges computational modeling and real-world applications, including pandemic forecasting, vaccine equity analysis, and digital divide mapping. Notable achievements include developing the Influcast influenza surveillance system and contributing to the understanding of SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics.

Awards & Affiliations: He is a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute and an Editorial Board member of PLoS Computational Biology. His work has been recognized with a top 1% citation award for his influential paper on Twitter user activity modeling.

Grants & Collaboration: Funded by the U.S. Army Lab Research (2024–2025), Perra collaborates on interdisciplinary projects involving global health, computational epidemiology, and network science.