Professor Christopher Dye

Chris Dye began professional life as a biologist and ecologist (BA York 1978) but postgraduate research on mosquitoes (DPhil Oxford 1982) led to a career in epidemiology and public health. Based at Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 1982-96, he carried out research on bloodsucking insects as vectors of leishmaniasis, malaria and river blindness in Africa, Asia and South America, and on the role of domestic and wild animals as reservoirs of human infection and disease.

In 1996, he joined the World Health Organization where he developed ways of analyzing the vast quantities of routine surveillance data (big data) collected by government health departments worldwide ─ extracting signal from noise to devise better methods for understanding and controlling tuberculosis, malaria, and Ebola and Zika viruses.

As WHO Director of Strategy 2014-18, he served as science advisor to the Director General, oversaw the production and dissemination of health information by WHO press and libraries, and coordinated WHO’s work on health and the Sustainable Development Goals. From 2006-09, he was also Gresham Professor of Physic (and other biological sciences), 35th in a lineage of professors that have given public lectures in the City of London since 1597. He is currently Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford University where he is working to make a stronger case for prevention in public health. He is a Fellow of The UK Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of Biology.