Alison P. Galvani (born ca. 1977) is an American

epidemiologist Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent diseases. It is a cornerstone ...

. She is the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Epidemiology at the

Yale School of Public Health The Yale School of Public Health (YSPH) was founded in 1915 by Charles-Edward Amory Winslow and is one of the oldest public health masters programs in the United States. YSPH is both a department (established in 1915) within the school of medic ...

and the Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis. She became interested in biology after reading

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

' ''

The Blind Watchmaker ''The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design'' is a 1986 book by Richard Dawkins, in which the author presents an explanation of, and argument for, the theory of evolution by means of natural selecti ...

'' in high school. She wrote Dawkins and he replied, encouraging her to apply to

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

. She earned a degree in biological sciences from Oxford and continued her studies there, receiving a PhD in theoretical epidemiology. The focus of Galvani's research is the application of

evolutionary ecology Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them. Conversely, it can ...

and epidemiology in the study of diseases. She has published over 160 scholarly articles. Galvani directs the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis (CIDMA) since 2013. In 2014, she and her team published a series of papers covering the ongoing

Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa The 2013–2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease, centered in West Africa, was the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and S ...

. She was named the Burnett and Stender Families Professor of Public Health in 2015. She is the youngest faculty member in Yale School of Medicine's history to be appointed to a named professorship.

Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci ( ; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) from 1984 to 2022, and the chief medical ...

, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, described Dr. Galvani as an international star in the field of modelling of infectious diseases and commented on her research contributions as

“She has made major contributions in our understanding of the dynamics and impact of a variety of infectious diseases outbreaks including HIV/AIDS, Zika, Ebola, and influenza, among many others and now most recently COVID-19. It has been a pleasure to have her as an esteemed colleague and friend.”

Awards and honors

*2005 – Young Investigator Prize (

American Society of Naturalists The American Society of Naturalists (ASN) was founded in 1883 and is one of the oldest professional societies dedicated to the biological sciences in North America. The purpose of the Society is "to advance and diffuse knowledge of organic evoluti ...

) *2006 – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Award *2007 – MacMillan Award *2007 – Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin fellowship *2012 –

Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists was established in 2007 through a partnership between the Blavatnik Family Foundation, headed by Leonard Blavatnik (Russian: Леонид Валентинович Блаватник), chairman of Access Indu ...

*2013 – Bellman Prize

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Galvani, Alison P. 1970s births Living people American women epidemiologists American epidemiologists Yale University faculty Alumni of the University of Oxford 21st-century American women academics 21st-century American women scientists Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century American academics 21st-century American scientists