Chris Gilligan

Professor Chris Gilligan serves as Director of Research and Head of the Epidemiology and Modelling Group within the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. A Fellow of King's College since 1988, Professor Gilligan has dedicated over 40 years to advancing mathematical approaches for plant disease control and food security. His leadership extends to trustee roles at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the James Hutton Institute, demonstrating significant influence in botanical and agricultural policy spheres.

• ScD, University of Cambridge (1999)
• MA, University of Oxford (1978)
• MA, University of Cambridge (1977)
• DPhil Plant Pathology, Wolfson College, University of Oxford (1974-1978)
• BA Agricultural & Forest Sciences, Keble College, University of Oxford (1971-1974)

Professor Gilligan's research program focuses on developing theoretical epidemiological frameworks to predict and control outbreaks of plant pathogens and pests within changing agricultural landscapes. His work addresses critical food security challenges through innovative modeling approaches that have been deployed across multiple continents. Current projects target desert locust population dynamics, wheat rust pathogens across Africa and Asia, and disease threats to staple crops including cassava, banana and citrus. His research integrates environmental change considerations with practical surveillance systems to mitigate risks to global food production.

Analysis of Professor Gilligan's recent publications reveals a sophisticated integration of mathematical modeling with real-world agricultural challenges across diverse systems. His work spans from developing early warning systems for wheat rusts deployed in Ethiopia to creating transferable models for citrus greening in the U.S. and comprehensive frameworks for aflatoxin contamination throughout maize supply chains. A notable trend is the increasing sophistication of spatially-explicit models that incorporate climate variables and human activity patterns to predict disease spread with greater precision. These models demonstrate remarkable transferability across different crop-pathogen systems while maintaining scientific rigor.

• CBE for Services to Plant Pathology in the field of Epidemiology (2015)
• R.W. Holley Lecturer, Cornell University (2012)
• Professorial Research Fellow, BBSRC (2005-2010)
• Fisher Lecturer, Rothamsted Research (2009)
• Honorary Fellow, American Phytopathological Society (2005)

Professor Gilligan's research has attracted substantial funding from major international organizations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. His current program provides practical disease surveillance applications across 15 sub-Saharan African countries, Bangladesh and Nepal. The wheat rust early warning system developed through this work has been successfully implemented in Ethiopia through collaboration with the UK Met Office, CIMMYT and the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research, with expansion underway in Kenya, Bangladesh and Nepal. His models have directly informed policy decisions by the UK Government, United States Department of Agriculture, and Australian authorities on emerging pest and pathogen threats.

As leader of the Epidemiology and Modelling Group, Professor Gilligan directs a comprehensive research program organized around three major thematic areas: Orchard Crops (focusing on citrus greening and avocado viroid), Stored Foods (addressing aflatoxin contamination), and Forestry and Urban Trees (managing threats like ash dieback and oak processionary moth). The group's work integrates field data with sophisticated mathematical models to create practical tools for disease prediction and management. Their recent development of an animation showing cassava brown streak disease spread across Nigeria demonstrates the group's innovative approach to visualizing complex epidemiological dynamics for practical decision support.