Roy M. Anderson

For other people of the same name, see Roy Anderson (disambiguation).

Sir Roy Anderson
Born	(1947-04-12) 12 April 1947 Hertfordshire
Residence	London
Nationality	British
Fields	epidemiology
Institutions	University of Oxford Imperial College London Ministry of Defence
Alma mater	Imperial College London
Thesis	A quantitative ecological study of the helminth parasites of the bream Abramis brama' (1971)
Doctoral advisor	George Murdie
Notable awards	Croonian Lecture

Sir Roy Malcolm Anderson FRS FMedSci (born 12 April 1947) is a leading British expert on epidemiology. He has mathematically modelled the spread of diseases such as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and AIDS. From October 2004 to September 2007 Anderson was the Ministry of Defence's, Chief Scientific Advisor in the UK. He also currently chairs the science advisory board of WHO's Neglected Tropical Diseases programme, is a member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Grand Challenges In Global Health advisory board, and chairs the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) advisory board funded by the Gates Foundation. He is a non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline.

Biography

Education and early life

Anderson was born the son of James Anderson and Betty Watson-Weatherborn. He attended Duncombe School, Bengeo and Richard Hale School. He gained a BSc degree in zoology at Imperial College and a PhD degree in parasitology in 1971 with thesis titled A quantitative ecological study of the helminth parasites of the bream Abramis brama (L). Most of Anderson's early career was at Imperial College, becoming Professor of Parasite Ecology in 1982. He was head of the Department of Biology from 1984 to 1993. At Imperial College, he served as Director of the Wellcome Centre for Parasite Infections from 1989 to 1993.

Career

In 1993 Anderson moved to the University of Oxford where he was head of the Zoology department and held the Linacre Chair of Zoology at Merton College until 2000. During this time he served as Director, Wellcome Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Disease.

Anderson is the author of over 450 scientific articles and has sat on numerous government and international agency committees advising on public health and disease control including the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS. From 1991–2000, he was a Governor of the Wellcome Trust.

Foot and mouth
Anderson was one of the most prominent scientists who advised the UK Government on the handling of the Foot and Mouth control policy in 2001.

Chief Scientific Advisor
He was Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence from October 2004 to September 2007. After that, he returned to his Chair in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College London.

Rector of Imperial College
Anderson succeeded Richard Sykes as the 14th Rector of Imperial College on 1 July 2008. In this role he expressed a desire to raise tuition fees and privatise top UK universities within 10–20 years. He tendered his resignation in November 2009 stating "I have decided to step down as rector as I want to return to my primary concern, which is my deep and abiding research interest into global health."

Honours

Anderson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1986, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 2004. He was knighted in the 2006 Queen's Birthday Honours list.

Personal life

In 1975, he married Mary Joan Mitchell, whom he later divorced in 1989. In 1990, he married Claire Baron. He enjoys hill walking, croquet, natural history and photography.

External links

• Freeview Video 'The Epidemic of Mad Cow Disease (BSE) in the UK, Roy Anderson — a Royal Institution Discourse by the Vega Science Trust
• EPSRC biography
• Telegraph — Honours for those who 'work and serve at the sharp end'

Academic offices
Preceded by Richard Sykes	Rector of Imperial College London 2008–2009	Succeeded by Keith O'Nions