Rate My Professor Chris Jewell

Professor Chris Jewell serves as Professor in Statistics in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Lancaster University, where he heads the Mathematics for AI in Real-world Systems (MARS) section. He earned his PhD from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Lancaster University and has held previous appointments as Senior Lecturer in Statistics and Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology at the same institution. Jewell works at the interface of epidemiology, computing, and statistics, developing methods for training and prediction using probabilistic state-transition models. His research interests encompass inference for infectious disease models, food-borne disease source attribution, high-performance computing for biostatistical applications, and GPU programming. He leads initiatives in data engineering within Lancaster’s Data Science Institute and supervises PhD students on topics including Bayesian stochastic epidemic models employing Monte Carlo methods.

Jewell has significantly influenced infectious disease modelling, particularly through contributions to COVID-19 response efforts such as spatial stochastic epidemic modelling, nowcasting, and risk forecasting for the UK. His accolades include the Lancaster University Staff Award in 2021, the SPI-M-O Award for Modelling and Data Services in 2022, and the Weldon Memorial Prize in 2022 shared with Dr. Jonathan Read. Notable publications feature 'Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV (COVID-19): early estimation of epidemiological parameters and epidemic size estimates' (Read et al., 2021, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B), 'Networks and the epidemiology of infectious disease' (Danon et al., 2011, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases), 'Predicting undetected infections during the 2007 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak' (Jewell et al., 2009, Journal of the Royal Society Interface), 'Circulation of Salmonella spp. between humans, animals and the environment in animal-owning households in Malawi' (Wilson et al., 2025, Nature Communications), and 'Model-based methods for hospital infection prevention and control: potential and challenges' (Bridgen et al., 2025, BMC Global and Public Health). He serves on the editorial board of the Equine Veterinary Journal since 2015, chairs committees for the Office for National Statistics, participates in the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), acted as a UoA6 REF Panel member, and holds leadership roles such as N8 CIR Digital Health Theme Lead.