Steven Riley

Steven Riley is a Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics at Imperial College London's School of Public Health (Faculty of Medicine) and concurrently serves as Director General for Data Analytics and Surveillance at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). He holds affiliations with the Centre for Paediatrics and Child Health, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Respiratory Infections, and Vaccine Research Network. Trained in physics and computer science, his work focuses on outbreak dynamics, influenza epidemiology, spatial transmission processes, and public health-relevant mathematical modeling.

During the pandemic, he led Imperial College's COVID-19 Response Team, contributed to the SPI-M committee, and directed the REACT study analyzing community transmission. Since 2021, he has been 90% seconded to UKHSA, maintaining his faculty role part-time. His research integrates field studies, data analysis, and computational models to address public health challenges.

Key research areas include influenza antibody dynamics, epidemic forecasting, surveillance system optimization, and AI-driven analytics. His recent work emphasizes strengthening global epidemic intelligence and improving vaccination strategies for diseases like Ebola and SARS-CoV-2.

His articles focus on pandemic preparedness, surveillance methodology, and modeling ensemble techniques. They highlight innovations like large language model applications for public health analytics and strategies to mitigate non-response bias in population studies.

Riley's academic leadership includes co-chairing Imperial's School of Public Health opportunities committee to enhance diversity and workplace culture. He has advised on health policy through multiple governmental and international committees.