Nathalie MacDermott Keynote Speaker

Dr. Nathalie MacDermott is an academic clinical lecturer at King’s College London funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). She works clinically as a paediatric infectious diseases doctor, but her research background is in epidemic and pandemic diseases. Her PhD, undertaken at Imperial College London, investigated genetic susceptibility to outcome from Ebola virus disease in Sierra Leone. This research also involved determining disease transmission dynamics in rural and urban communities. During 2014 and 2015, Nathalie spent over six months responding to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Based in Liberia and working with the organisation Samaritan’s Purse International Relief, she was involved in direct clinical care of patients with Ebola, the programme management of the clinical response and working with and advising other actors in the containment and management of the epidemic. In response to her time in West Africa she was awarded the Ebola Medal for Service in West Africa by Her Majesty’s Government. Nathalie has responded to several other disaster and epidemic situations including the cholera epidemic in Haiti, the post-Typhoon Haiyan response in the Philippines, the European refugee crisis in Greece and Ebola preparedness work in South Sudan.