Peter White

Professor Peter White serves as Head of the Modelling & Economics Unit at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and holds a part-time professorship in Public Health Modelling within the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. He additionally co-directs the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Modelling and Health Economics and serves on the WHO Technical Advisory Group on STI Research Priority Setting.

His academic background includes a Biochemistry degree from the University of Cambridge, an MSc from Oxford, and a PhD from Stirling supervised by Prof Peter Hudson and Dr Rachel Norman.

Research focuses on Public Health Modelling and Health Economics applied to sexually transmitted infections (gonorrhoea, Mycoplasma genitalium), tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19. His work employs mathematical modelling to evaluate intervention effectiveness and cost-effectiveness, directly influencing UK public health policy through evidence of vicious/virtuous cycles in healthcare capacity.

Accolades include a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Fellowship.

As an educator, he lectures on Imperial's MSc Epidemiology program and Institut Pasteur's Vaccinology course, while organizing the annual Introduction to Infectious Disease Modelling to Inform Policy Making workshop. His Patsi study on STI healthcare capacity constraints directly informed UK Parliament decisions, leading to increased sexual health funding.

He leads UKHSA's Modelling & Economics Unit and the NIHR HPRU, coordinating collaborations with LSHTM, Queen Mary University of London, UCL, and institutions across Birmingham, Bristol, and Warwick.