Dr. Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London, and a member of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis. She is the recipient of the prestigious American Society of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Young Investigator Award for her work using mathematical models to assess public health impact of malaria interventions.

Dr. Cuomo-Dannenburg's research spans three primary areas:
1. Malaria Chemoprevention Impact Assessments
2. Malaria Drug Resistance Modelling
3. Pandemic Preparedness, with a focus on Marburg Virus Disease and Rift Valley Fever

Her work is driven by policy-informed scientific questions aimed at maximising public health outcomes, with a specific emphasis on preventing disease in high-risk populations and mitigating the development of antimalarial drug resistance. Currently, she partners with the Malaria Consortium, utilising mathematical modelling approaches to design clinical trials and assess the impact of seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) in East and Southern Africa. She is also involved in research collaborations studying trends in artemisinin and partner drug resistance in Africa, and using modelling to explore strategies for slowing resistance evolution.

In addition to her malaria-focused research, Dr. Cuomo-Dannenburg has substantial expertise in outbreak response and pandemic preparedness. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led a team that curated high-quality case data, which contributed to the first global estimation of SARS-CoV-2 infection severity. She also developed methods for estimating SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility based on contact patterns and assessed the impact of quarantine using trial data from Vo’, Italy. In later stages of the pandemic, she worked with colleagues to examine the role of children in transmission and retrospectively analysed the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in altering epidemic trajectories.

As previous chair of the Pathogen Epidemiology Review Group, Dr. Cuomo-Dannenburg led efforts to compile epidemiological data and analyse parameters related to Marburg Virus Disease. This research has informed public health responses to Marburg outbreaks in Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, and Rwanda. She is also focused on reducing bias in real-time outbreak analysis by enhancing epidemiological reporting, has been involved in the development of the epireview R package, and contributed to the WHO Pandemic Hub-led initiative to create a Global Repository of Epidemiological Parameters (GREP).

In July 2024, Dr. Cuomo-Dannenburg completed her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Lucy Okell and Dr. Patrick Walker. Her dissertation titled “Modelling the Potential Suitability of Seasonal Malaria Chemoprevention in Settings of High-Grade Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine Resistance”, sought to understand the impact of SMC in areas with pre-existing drug resistance. This work challenged the previous belief that SMC should be confined to low-resistance settings, supporting the expansion of this life-saving intervention to millions of children in East and Southern Africa. Gina worked closely with the National Malaria Control Programme and policy partners in Uganda during this work, and this research Is being used to inform SMC scale-up in the country.