Gwen Knight

Gwen Knight is a Professor and co-Director of the AMR Centre at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), working within the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Dynamics in the Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health. She also holds affiliations with the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases, Vaccine Centre, and Antimicrobial Resistance Centre.

Her research focuses on the dynamics of antibiotic resistance, with particular emphasis on the interaction between age, gender and resistance patterns. Her work spans three main areas: understanding bacteriophage-driven resistance evolution in S. aureus, modeling One Health interventions through the SEFASI JPIAMR project where she serves as PI, and developing better methods to support data-guided empiric antibiotic guidelines. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed to estimating hospital-acquired infection burden and transmission settings, as well as examining the interaction between COVID-19 and AMR drivers.

Analysis of her 15 most recent publications reveals a strong focus on age and sex patterns in antimicrobial resistance, mathematical modeling approaches to AMR dynamics, and the development of tools for AMR surveillance and policy. Her work increasingly incorporates demographic factors into AMR analysis and examines the complex relationship between antibiotic use across human and animal sectors and resulting resistance patterns.

Scientific Awards:

• MRC Career Development Award (current funding)
• MRC Skills Development Fellowship (previous funding)

Professor Knight teaches on the introduction to mathematical modeling of infectious diseases module and co-organizes the "AMR: a multidisciplinary approach" short course at LSHTM. Her educational background includes a BA in Mathematics from Oxford University and MSc/MRes in Systems Biology from University College London, followed by a PhD investigating hospital-associated MRSA at UCL with experimental work based at St George's Healthcare NHS Trust. She has been involved in organizing the "RESIST" workshops on AMR modeling for policy and previously worked at the HPRU in HCAI and AMR at Imperial College London on carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae interventions.