Imperial College World Health Organization
Which employer did Maria Van Kerkhove work for from 2009 to 2015?
Maria Van Kerkhove Maria DeJoseph Van Kerkhove ( born February 20 , 1977 ) is an American infectious disease epidemiologist . With a background in high-threat pathogens , Van Kerkhove specializes in emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and is based in the Health Emergencies Program at the World Health Organization ( WHO ) . She is the technical lead of COVID-19 response and the head of emerging diseases and zoonosis unit at WHO . Early life and education . Van Kerkhove was born Maria Rosanne DeJoseph in New Hartford , New York . In 1999 , she received a B.S . in biological sciences from Cornell University . In 2000 , she received an M.S . in epidemiology from Stanford University School of Medicine . In 2009 , she earned a Ph.D . in infectious disease epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine , where she wrote her thesis on the avian flu in Cambodia . Career . From 2000 to 2005 , Van Kerkhove was a senior epidemiologist at Exponents health sciences practice in New York City . After this , she worked as an epidemiologist at the Institut Pasteur de Cambodia ( 2006–2008 ) , while conducting field studies on H5N1 for her Ph.D . Van Kerkhove was a senior research fellow in the Medical Research Council Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling at Imperial College London from 2009 to 2015 . She specialized in Ebola , influenza , meningitis , MERS-CoV , and yellow fever . In April 2009 , she began working as a technical consultant to the World Health Organization ( WHO ) in its Global Capacities , Alert and Response Cluster . In 2013 , she was a technical consultant for WHO as a member of the MERS-CoV task force . From 2015 to 2017 , Van Kerkhove was the head of the Outbreak Investigation Task Force at the Institut Pasteur’s Center for Global Health , conducting field research into surrounding zoonoses , respiratory viruses and emerging/re-emerging viruses such as Zika , MERS-CoV , Ebola and Marburg . She specialized in field research to gather data on the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 ( HPAI/H5N1 ) , with a focus on transmission risk from poultry to humans . Van Kerkhove has been an honorary lecturer at Imperial College London since 2015 . She has been Scientist , Technical Lead MERS-CoV at WHO in Geneva , Switzerland , since March 2017 . As part of her work with WHO , Van Kerkhove appears in regular press conferences by WHO regarding the COVID-19 pandemic . Van Kerkhove has provided answers to common questions about the pandemic . Van Kerkhove spent two weeks in China in February 2020 to better understand the COVID-19 outbreak and to understand how China was trying to control the virus . Personal life . Van Kerkhove lives in Geneva , Switzerland , with her husband Neil and two sons . External links . - Maria Van Kerkhove at Imperial College London