Dr Andrew Iskauskas

Willmore Fellow, Statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences

What do you do?

I am a Willmore Fellow in Statistics. Researcher in uncertainty quantification, particularly for calibrating complex models to data. I work closely with epidemiologists from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Institute for Disease Modelling on models of TB, HIV, HPV, and Covid.

How are you involved in this area of science? 

My role is helping modellers to use their models to best reflect the real world, and to understand what the effects of predictions or interventions are. Computer models are extremely useful but never a perfect representation of reality, and if we ignore that then our predictions about future spread of disease can be very misleading. There are many techniques in uncertainty quantification that can help modellers, but they require statistical knowledge that many in the modelling community do not have - my work helps bridge the gap between the modellers and the maths.

What do you love about this topic?

The fact that it is applicable in so many important areas means that every project is new, interesting, and challenging in a different way to the last. Collaborating with people from many other disciplines is frequently exciting!

How does this work deliver real-world impact?

Our work has resulted in policy change at the international level via World Health Organisation initiatives to reduce the burden of tuberculosis worldwide; due to our engagement with the community, our techniques are also being adopted by modellers across the world. Hopefully this results in material improvement to the global health landscape.

Find out more:

• Read a report from World Health Organisation detailing the importance of disease modelling.
• Learn more about a United Nations initiative to develop TB vaccines.