Dr. Andy Tatem, Assistant Professor of Geography; and Assistant Research Professor, Emerging Pathogens Institute (EPI), University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA. Andy s research interests include malaria, GIS, remote sensing, spatial analysis, environmental modeling. A main objective of his work is to determine how local, regional and global patterns of human movement affect the movement of pests, pathogens and vector species, such as imported malaria and disease-carrying invasive mosquitoes.
Andy Tatem was born and raised in Bath, UK. He earned his undergraduate degree (1995-1998) and PhD (1998-2001) at the University of Southampton, UK. He holds a joint position in Geography and EPI. He came to Florida after several years of work at the University of Oxford s Spatial Ecology and Epidemiology Group in the department of zoology. Tatem is also a research associate at the Centre for Geographic Medicine in Nairobi, Kenya. In addition to his primary interests, he also researches the application of satellite-imagery based solutions to public health problems and the optimization of population and urbanization mapping for malaria burden estimation through the Afripop Project, which he leads. He is interested in how the increasing mobility of humans and growth in global trade are reducing geographical barriers to the movement of pathogens and exotic species. Tatem also plans to explore inter- disciplinary links through the application of molecular epidemiology and spatial demographic tools and datasets. At EPI, Tatem is continuing his work with the Malaria Atlas Project by examining approaches to quantifying human movement patterns, as part of a $1.5 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant with Dr. David Smith aimed at developing spatial tools for local malaria elimination planning. Cell phone records, seasonal satellite imagery and microcensus records are all being used in an effort to explore novel approaches to quantifying human and malaria infection movements in low transmission regions. Andy may be contacted at ATatem@ufl.edu. See also
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/atatem/
Updated: February 2011
Health and Medical Geography 