Sebastian Funk
Professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics at @lshtm.bsky.social. Developing methods for making sense of outbreak data. Outside of work trying to make sense of the rest of the world.
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkPhD position (London, UK) Real-time modelling of infectious disease outbreaks. with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social at @epiforecasts.io @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2440
- Two more fully funded PhDs in real-time infectious disease modelling & forecasting — developing methods for operational use by @ukhsa.bsky.social and others in outbreak response. UK home students, starting April or September 2026. www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...
- Looking for people excited about infectious disease epidemiology who enjoy programming and want to develop their statistical modelling skills. DMs open if you have questions.
- Joint supervision between @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social (w/ @seabbs.bsky.social), @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social dn.bsky.social (w/ @anne-cori.bsky.social), and @ukhsa.bsky.social (Edwin van Leeuwen).
- and Chris Overton (UKHSA).
- Reposted by Sebastian Funk💉 Our annual lecture will be given by Prof Caroline Trotter, who will explore work estimating the #PublicHealth impact of vaccination of Gavi & discuss its implications for #vaccine policy 🗓️ Thursday 27 November, 17:30 GMT 📍 LSHTM | Online Details ⬇️ www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/e...
- Reposted by Sebastian Funk👋Don't miss LSHTM research funding opportunities! We have 2 new PhD #studentships for home fee students as part of @nihr.bsky.social Health Protection Research Units for #Vaccines & Immunisation, & #InfectiousDisease modelling. Find out more & apply 👇 www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkThese should be pretty great I think! Want some more background on the kind of fun methods these will build off? Open source course here: nfidd.github.io/sismid/
- 2 PhD positions (London, UK) In real-time infectious disease modelling with @@sbfnk.bsky.social @@anne-cori.bsky.social @@seabbs.bsky.social at @@lshtm.bsky.social @@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social @@ukhsa.bsky.social More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2336
- Reposted by Sebastian Funk2 PhD positions (London, UK) In real-time infectious disease modelling with @@sbfnk.bsky.social @@anne-cori.bsky.social @@seabbs.bsky.social at @@lshtm.bsky.social @@imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social @@ukhsa.bsky.social More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2336
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkExciting HPRU PhD opportunities (home fees only) at LSHTM with co-supervision at Imperial and UKHSA: www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...
- So disappointing to still see papers in big publisher journals with data/code links that don't work (e.g. private github repos). If editors and reviewers can't even be bothered to do a minimal check that the linked resource exists, what does that imply for the integrity of the whole review process?
- Really enjoyed giving a talk at the @rki.de Colloquium in Berlin today. Slides are at epiforecasts.io/slides/rki_2...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkLatest out in Epidemics: "Collaborative forecasting of influenza-like illness in Italy: The Influcast experience" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 👇
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkThe new epidist release just dropped which includes support for the marginal model as well as lots of other goodies epidist.epinowcast.org/news/index.h... TLDRP: its 20-lots faster depending on number of stratifications in the data and not approximate.
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkI was speaking about the epinowcast package, ecosystem, and community with a little bit of a pitch for modelling in Julia at the end. If any of this work takes your interest this PhD on delay estimation may interest you. bsky.app/profile/iddj...
- PhD position (London, UK) Improving Estimation and Analysis of Epidemiological Delays for Infectious Disease Outbreaks with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social at @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social @lshtm.bsky.social... More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2261
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkPhD position (London, UK) Machine Learning for infectious disease forecasting during epidemics and pandemics with @sbfnk.bsky.social Daniela de Angelis at @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social @lshtm.bsky.social @epiforecasts.io More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2264
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkPhD position (London, UK) Improving Estimation of Reproduction Numbers in Dynamic Outbreak Contexts with @anne-cori.bsky.social @sbfnk.bsky.social Edwin van Leeuwen at @imperial-jameel.bsky.social More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2263
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkPhD position (London, UK) Improving Estimation and Analysis of Epidemiological Delays for Infectious Disease Outbreaks with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social @seabbs.bsky.social at @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social @lshtm.bsky.social... More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2261
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkPhD position (London, UK) Improving Infectious Disease Forecasts and Forecast Evaluation with @sbfnk.bsky.social @anne-cori.bsky.social Edwin van Leeuwen at @cmmid-lshtm.bsky.social @lshtm.bsky.social @epiforecasts.io More details: iddjobs.org/jobs/2262
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkNew blog post! I show how to marginalise discrete variables from Bayesian ecological models in Stan and how to recover their posterior distributions after estimation. I cover occupancy and N-mixture models using multiple parameterisations and model types. quantecol.com.au/blog/margina...
- It's rare to have so many PhD studentships open at the same time that are fully funded at the project level - do apply if any of these strike your interest (unfortunately, UK home fee eligible candidates only). I'll describe the 3 projects that involve me / @epiforecasts.io in a bit more detail.
- 11 PhD studentships now available in Health Analytics, Epidemic Modelling and Health Economics, jointly between LSHTM, Imperial and UKHSA, to start autumn 2025. Deadline 7 March: www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a...
- On project is to improve our ability to characterise things like reporting delays, incubation periods, generation times etc. in real time, i.e. during ongoing outbreaks. These can inform control options such as contact tracing but this requires fully understanding the variation in observed delays.
- Another project aims to improve real-time forecasts of infectious disease outbreaks, involving ensemble methods and a variety of models and testing different data sets that can inform them. Crucially, we need to validate predictions to improve them so evaluation is a big part of this project.
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View full threadTo apply go to www.lshtm.ac.uk/study/fees-a... and in the meantime get in touch with any questions.
- quite. h/t @hertzpodcast.bsky.social source doi.org/10.1093/etoj...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkAmazing opportunity: a few PhD positions in Health Analytics, Epidemic Modelling and Health Economics available with myself and colleagues from @mrc-outbreak.bsky.social, @ccmid.bsky.social and @ukhsa.bsky.social. Please apply/circulate widely!
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkSenior post at LSHTM closes in 2 days (31st Jan). Do apply if you want to lead/join a department focussed on infectious disease epi and dynamics. Unrelated: the UK doesn’t have executive orders.
- Open Recruitment of a Full Professor and Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Dynamics: jobs.lshtm.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Good research culture, friendly colleagues, inspiring public health leaders, great connections across epi & PH, & very dedicated students. Join!
- This is a great post, and every point in there applies to the assessment of infectious disease forecasts.
- I wrote a slightly controversially titled blog post about benchmarking for time series models. Often the benchmarks don't align with real world problems, which I think is slowing progress! magnusross.github.io/posts/tsf_benchmarks/
- 🚀 We're hiring! Professor / Head of Department position at @lshtm.bsky.social
- Open Recruitment of a Full Professor and Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Dynamics: jobs.lshtm.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Good research culture, friendly colleagues, inspiring public health leaders, great connections across epi & PH, & very dedicated students. Join!
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkOpen Recruitment of a Full Professor and Head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology & Dynamics: jobs.lshtm.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... Good research culture, friendly colleagues, inspiring public health leaders, great connections across epi & PH, & very dedicated students. Join!
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkMany, many thanks to colleagues, collaborators, students, friends and family for being with me on this awesome journey to Professor @lshtm.bsky.social! It has involved lots of hard but fun work as well as the usual dose of luck. Onwards and upwards to trying to tackle more challenges in #AMR!
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkJust a side point really, but I think it's time for this concept of "output (in the traditional academic sense)" to crawl back into the publisher's boardroom where it was born and expire.
- Struck today looking at the {EpiNow2} contributors page how much work it takes to maintain a package over the long term. Below link is filtered to just the maintenance period in which there has been no "output" (in the traditional academic sense). github.com/epiforecasts...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkStruck today looking at the {EpiNow2} contributors page how much work it takes to maintain a package over the long term. Below link is filtered to just the maintenance period in which there has been no "output" (in the traditional academic sense). github.com/epiforecasts...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkMy perspective on the unknown pathogen currently causing a severe respiratory outbreak in #DRCongo in this @NBCNews article: A lot we don’t yet know. Good news is that there are experienced local teams on the ground investigating. Lab analyses are critical next step. www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkThis framing misses the bigger point. As I describe in my book (bit.ly/asymptomatic...) Bhattacharya co-led a flawed April 2020 study that wrongly concluded (wrong at the time) that COVID-19 was far less a threat given a misestimation of evidence of prior infections. www.bbc.com/news/article...
- Reposted by Sebastian FunkPosition with @mert0248.bsky.social and me in modelling the potential impact of next generation flu vaccines: iddjobs.org/jobs/modelli...
- If there are any users of the socialmixr R package for estimating contact matrices here: we're planning some substantial changes to the user interface and would love to hear your thoughts/views. Please feel free to comment at github.com/epiforecasts...
- Reposted by Sebastian Funk10th Dec - join us in person or online for a talk by Sofia Villar from MRC BSU on 'Response-adaptive randomization in clinical trials: myth vs reality', organised by LSHTM's Data and Statistical Science for Health Centre. More details here: www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/e...
