Andrea’s story

I’m a Associate Professor in Epidemiology, which basically involves some teaching and some travelling, and a lot of research.

Epidemiology is all about the causes of disease. So I do a lot of research into asthma and lung diseases to see what might increase the risk of people getting asthma in the first place. This means looking into things like pollution, diet, and more recently parasites – like hookworm.

We found out from our work in Ethiopia, that the people from there who have parasites living in them (which surprisingly make up a huge proportion of the world) tend to be less likely to get asthma and allergies. So we are looking at whether there is a link there and how we can use it.

I’m trained as a statistician, so I actually help analyse the data and then write it up as papers at the end with a view to getting published. As well as doing the research, I teach on some of the Masters courses. We also get to go out into the field, which is when we go to places like Ethiopia… and we have just got project funding to go out to Cuba, so I’ll be digging my passport out again. 

I work part-time as I’ve got young kids and need flexible hours; the University has been really helpful with this. Which sums it all up really - it’s a nice city and the University is a friendly place to work with a good reputation – I would definitely recommend working here to you.

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