Principal Supervisor: Dr Jayna Raghwani, Royal Veterinary College

Co-Supervisors: Dr Matthew Hall, LSHTM; Dr Kris Parag, Imperial College London

Department: Pathobiology and Population Sciences

Project Description

Background and Rationale

We are seeking a highly motivated PhD student to join an interdisciplinary team investigating infectious disease dynamics in wildlife reservoirs of zoonotic viruses. The overarching research project, “Integrating metaviromics with epidemiological dynamics: understanding rodent virus transmission in the Anthropocene”, is funded through the NSF/NIH/BBSRC US-UK Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Disease (EEID) Programme. The project involves partners from the US (Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Smithsonian’s Global Health Program), UK (Royal Veterinary College, Glasgow, Oxford), Uganda (Vector Control Division), and Kenya (International Livestock Research Institute; ILRI).

The PhD will be based at the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), with co-supervision from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London and will involve close collaboration with the wider international project team. The project brings together expertise in wildlife disease ecology, virus genomics, and infectious disease modelling, providing a strongly interdisciplinary training environment.

Project Description

Infectious disease models often assume that host populations are homogeneous, yet individuals vary widely in how frequently they contact others and how long they live. Such heterogeneity can strongly influence how pathogens spread, how large outbreaks become, and whether infections persist over time. Although these effects are well recognised in theory, there is limited empirical understanding of how individual-level variation shapes disease dynamics in natural populations.

The objective of the PhD is to quantify how individual differences in contact behaviour and lifespan influence viral transmission dynamics and long-term persistence in wild rodent populations. The student will analyse long-term capture-mark-recapture and social contact data from multiple rodent species, alongside viral genomic data collected over several years in a seasonally variable environment. These empirical data will be integrated with network and stochastic modelling as well as Bayesian inference approaches to explore how individual heterogeneity shapes epidemic size, timing, and persistence in populations living in dynamic habitats.

By combining detailed field-derived data with theoretical models, the project will advance understanding of disease dynamics in wildlife and generate insights relevant to the surveillance and control of rodent-borne viruses of public health concern.

Subject Areas/Keywords

Infectious disease modelling; disease ecology; wildlife disease

Key References

1.  Raulo, A. et al. Social and environmental transmission spread different sets of gut microbes in wild mice. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 972–985 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-024-02381-0
2. Raghwani J. et al. Seasonal dynamics of the wild rodent faecal virome. Mol Ecol. 32:4763-4776 (2023). doi: 10.1111/mec.16778.  
3. Lloyd-Smith, JO. et al. Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergence. Nature 438, 355–359 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04153

Further details about the project may be obtained from:

Principal Supervisor: Dr Jayna Raghwani, jraghwani@rvc.ac.uk

Co-Supervisors: Dr Matthew Hall, lshmh32@lshtm.ac.uk; Dr Kris Parag – k.parag@imperial.ac.uk

Further information about PhDs at RVC is available from:

https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/phd/how-to-apply

Project funding details and information about how to apply are available from:

https://www.rvc.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/phd/studentships/heterogeneity

Closing date for applications is:

2nd April 2026