Dr Maria Ruperez, MD, PhD, DTMH, is a medical doctor and researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the UK. She has an MSc in tropical medicine and hygiene from the LSHTM and completed her PhD in medicine at the University of Barcelona, Spain, in 2016. She has since worked at the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM) in Mozambique, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGobal) and the University of Cambridge and Imperial College, both in the UK. She has led and conducted numerous epidemiological studies and trials in Sub-Saharan Africa. She joined the LSHTM in 2018 as a research fellow in the epidemiology of TB/HIV and is currently coordinating the TREATS project in Zambia and South Africa, which aims to measure the impact of an HIV/TB preventive intervention in the community on the burden of TB, funded by the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP). She has also been a module organiser and lecturer in the LSHTM’s MSc programme since 2019. Her research focuses mainly on HIV and TB in low-income settings, but due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, her interest has broadened to studying COVID-19 and its impact on vulnerable populations.