About me
Ciara is an award-winning scientist and science communicator developing improved models to predict disease outbreaks and better inform global health response.
She is a final-year PhD candidate in infectious disease modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and most recently interned with the UK Health Security Agency advising on their COVID-19 variants surveillance workstream. As part of her PhD, Ciara developed EpiFusion, a framework for modeling disease and implementing those models. During the 2020 pandemic, she worked with the European Bioinformatics Institute to build a pipeline for modeling SARS-CoV-2 evolution and help design variant-robust antibody treatments. Ciara is a winner of the Google Global Science Fair, the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, and the BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, and has earned recognition from TIME Magazine, Teen Vogue, CBS, and other outlets for her achievements in science communication. She has addressed audiences worldwide about her research, including during UNGA78 meetings on pandemic preparedness and public health. During UNGA79, Ciara looks forward to advocating for the involvement of early career researchers in policymaking and increased funding for genomic surveillance of diseases to improve outbreak response and prevent future pandemics.