tom harris
Postdoctoral Scholar
|
Short bio Tom Harris completed his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and his Master's degree in Computer Science at the University of Melbourne (Australia). During the summer of 2023 and 2024, he joined the Information Systems and Modeling group at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA) to study the emergence of racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 outcomes in the US. He earned his PhD in 2026 from the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne. In his doctoral work, he studied why social and demographic inequalities arise during outbreaks of respiratory pathogens. He showed that differences in human behaviour play a key role in explaining inequalities. He joined EPIcx lab in July 2026 to study how individual behaviours and social context affect the spread of infectious diseases and the impact of public health interventions.
Research activities
His research has focused on developing and applying models to understand the complex dynamics of respiratory pathogens spreading across a population. This work has spanned three key epidemiological themes: (1) social contact behaviour – exploring how heterogeneity in contact behaviour impacts epidemic trajectories; (2) health equity – using modelling to uncover and address socio-demographic disparities in disease outcomes among vulnerable and underserved subpopulations; and (3) multiscale disease dynamics – embedding within-host infection processes inside between-host transmission models to capture cross-scale feedback. At EPIcx lab, he analyses age-structured transmission models that incorporate social contact patterns and behavioural responses, and explores their impact on epidemic dynamics and intervention strategies. His work focuses on better understanding the impact of human behaviour on epidemic spread to improve pandemic preparedness for respiratory viruses.
|
EPIcx lab, 27 rue Chaligny, 75012, Paris, France
INSERM - Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale
Sorbonne Université, Faculté de Santé
IPLESP UMR-S 1136, site Hôpital St Antoine
Sorbonne Université Modeling Outbreaks Center (SUMOC)
INSERM - Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale
Sorbonne Université, Faculté de Santé
IPLESP UMR-S 1136, site Hôpital St Antoine
Sorbonne Université Modeling Outbreaks Center (SUMOC)
|
|
|
|