Marc‐Alain Widdowson

Dr Widdowson is the Director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp, Belgium. He was previously director of US CDC's Division of Global Protection in Kenya, Co Principal Investigator of STRIVE (Ebola vaccine trial in Siera Leone) and lead of the International Epidemiology and Research Team (IERT) of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the Influenza Division. He graduated from Cambridge University in anthropology and veterinary medicine and obtained MSc in Communicable Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dr Widdowson worked in Zimbabwe and Bolivia on epidemiology of zoonotic diseases and in 1999-2001 completed the European Program for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET ) in the Netherlands. Dr Widdowson joined the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001 with focus on epidemiology and control of rotavirus and norovirus domestically and internationally. He joined the Influenza Division in 2008. His work and that of the IERT team focuses on understanding the epidemiology, burden and prevention of seasonal and pandemic influenza worldwide. The team conducts influenza research at over 12 sites internationally, implementing a variety of studies, including enhanced surveillance, vaccine and antiviral trials. Dr Widdowson has authored or co-authored over 260 articles and book chapters mostly on epidemic viruses and has edited four journal supplements (Journal of Infectious Diseases and Vaccine)