Oliver Watson

Oliver Watson is an Assistant Professor and Imperial College Research Fellow at the School of Public Health, Imperial College London. He holds an Eric and Wendy Schmidt AI in Science Fellowship and is part of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis and Imperial's AI Initiative (I-X). His research focuses on infectious disease modelling, particularly malaria drug resistance, pandemic preparedness, and mortality estimation in humanitarian settings.

Education includes a PhD in Infectious Disease Modelling from Imperial College (2016–2019), an MRes in Epidemiology from Imperial (2015–2016), and degrees in Natural Sciences and Systems Biology from the University of Cambridge (2011–2015).

Key research areas involve integrating genetic data into malaria models, developing mortality estimation methods using novel data sources like social media, and advancing open-source tools for public health data analysis (e.g., the rdhs R package).

Scientific awards include the Schmidt Science Fellowship and Wellcome Trust PhD funding. His work has informed WHO malaria control strategies and global pandemic response policies.