Professor Christl Donnelly CBE

Christl Donnelly CBE is a statistician and epidemiologist studying the spread and control of infectious diseases, with a particular interest in outbreaks. She studied mathematics (BA) at Oberlin College and biostatistics (MSc, ScD) at Harvard School of Public Health, graduating in 1992.

Following a lecturer position at University of Edinburgh (1992-95), she joined the Wellcome Trust Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases at University of Oxford (1995-2000). Since 2000, she has worked at Imperial College London in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. Since 2018, she has worked at University of Oxford Department of Statistics and St Peter’s College.

Christl has studied Zika virus, Ebola, MERS, influenza, SARS, bovine TB, foot-and-mouth disease, rabies, cholera, dengue, BSE/vCJD, malaria and HIV/AIDS. She is a leading member of the WHO Ebola Response Team. She was also deputy chair of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB (1998-2007) which designed, oversaw and analysed the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. In addition to statistics, epidemiology and disease control, she is interested in conservation and animal welfare.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and an Honorary Fellow of the Zoological Society of London.