Dr. Samir Bhatt is a Professor at the University of Copenhagen and Imperial College London, where his research team works at the interface of mathematics, biology and computer science. While undertaking a MPhil at the University of Cambridge and a DPhil at the University of Oxford, he developed methods to estimate the rate of molecular adaptation in viruses, and conducted the first study investigating the origins of the 2009 Swine Flu pandemic. Subsequent research explored spatial epidemiology, including the first study to quantify the global distribution and burden of Dengue disease and a study measuring the effect of interventions (such as bednets) on malaria prevalence and incidence across Sub-Saharan Africa. At Imperial College London, Dr. Bhatt expanded his research to include studying housing quality in sub-Saharan Africa, developing network infection models for malaria, mapping travel accessibility, large scale geostatistical methods, and outbreak methodology. Recently, Dr. Bhatt has been involved in research and advising on the COVID-19 pandemic. Visit Professor Bhatt’s website for more information on his work.

Planned Polymaths Work: Dr. Bhatt plans to diversify his research into several new directions, including the economic effects of infectious disease outbreaks, developing approaches to understand variation in the rate of biological aging, studying the dynamics of stochastic branching processes and their properties, optimisation theory for phylogenetics and topological explanations for evolutionary processes.