Meet our academics – Dr Ian Hall

Meet the Department 5th September 2018

In this series of blogs, we chat to the academics you’ll meet, be taught by and work with during your time in the School of Mathematics. In this post, we catch up with Lecturer in Statistics Dr Ian Hall. We asked him about his work and what he gets up to when he can tear himself away from his research.

How can your research benefit the public?

I am interested in how human behaviour, disease epidemiology and ecology affect outbreaks of disease, at a range of scales (within human host through to population) and how mitigation may occur. Insights from mathematical models advise policy on mitigation strategies. So for smallpox we showed that local vaccination was better than mass vaccination and for anthrax that useful insights can be made from early case data to mitigate the outbreak.

How did you first become interested in your research area?

Upon finishing my PhD in fluid dynamics I felt like a change and so applied for a job in what is now Public Health England and got it! I had always been interested in mathematical  biology when an undergraduate and so it was an exciting jump from fluids.

Who or what first inspired your interest in maths?

Reading Iain Stewarts books from the mid‐90’s as a GCSE/A‐level student led me to apply for maths degree but my tutors at Exeter inspired interest in research (where I stayed on for my PhD)

What do you get up to in your spare time?

I have two children aged 6 and 8 so spare time is a luxury, but my wife and I enjoy walking and cycling so dragging them around the countryside when we can.

What’s your favourite thing about the city so far?

Not sure I have been here enough to know, but we are looking forward to exploring all the museums as a family once we relocate.

We’ll have a new academic interview for you on the blog soon.

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