Projects
Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBRs) pose a significant threat to humanity’s long term potential. In order to better assess which of these risks deserve the most attention, a colleague and I have set out to rank major GCBRs using an Importance-Tractability-Neglectedness (ITN) framework. Once complete, the findings will be made available here on my website, the Effective Altruism (EA) Forum, and possibly additional sources. We also aim to publicise our results by engaging with journalists to reach an audience beyond the existing EA community.
Early warning systems for infectious diseases have the potential to flag outbreaks to public health authorities months in advance. This can help facilitate a targeted response to epidemic mitigation, directing healthcare resources to regions within a country that need them most. I took part in a research collaboration between universities and public health organisations in Northern Ireland and Vietnam, where we developed weather-based forecasting models to help improve public health responses to dengue fever and diarrhoea in Vietnam.
I worked for the UK Health Security Agency from 2021–2022, focusing on forecasting national COVID-19 test demand. This was a unique challenge, involving making predictions of infections over time, public testing behaviour, positivity rates, and new variants. During this period, multiple Omicron variants came and went, the UK government lifted restrictions, and free testing was restricted to the most vulnerable populations.
Some of the more interesting problems we had to adapt to included: