Dr Epke Le Rutte is a senior scientist in the Disease Modelling and Intervention Dynamics group at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), which she joined in November 2020. She will use an individual-based model, which captures the transmission dynamics of COVID-19, to identify the impact of different interventions on public health outcomes such as COVID-19 incidence and mortality. She also focuses on actively involving the projects’ stakeholders and on supporting policymakers.

Dr Le Rutte is a veterinarian with a PhD in human neglected tropical disease (NTD) control and elimination. During her PhD and postdoc (both at Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands) she was an active member of the NTD Modelling Consortium, where she applied NTD transmission models to support policymakers such as the World Health Organization and Ministries of Health in identifying the most effective strategies for controlling and eliminating NTDs.