Jacco Wallinga is professor of mathematical modelling of infectious diseases. He is also affiliated with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) as head of the unit Modelling Infectious Diseases.

More information about Jacco Wallinga

Jacco Wallinga is professor of mathematical modelling of infectious diseases. He is also affiliated with the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) as head of the unit Modelling Infectious Diseases.

Infectious disease control

How can we predict the spread of an infectious disease among the human population? And if we take measures to control the spread, how effective should these interventions be? How many lives will be saved by the current vaccination programmes? These questions are central to research for infectious disease control. With mathematical, statistical and computational approaches we answer these questions.

Academic career

Jacco Wallinga obtained his MSc and PhD at the Wageningen University. The title of his PhD thesis (December 11th, 1998) is: ‘Dynamics of Weed Populations: spatial pattern formation and implications for control’. Wallinga specialised in the field of population biology of infectious diseases at the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM). He was appointed professor mathematical modelling of infectious diseases at the Leiden University Medical Centre. The title of his inaugural lecture is ‘Beyond the epidemic curve: models for infectious disease control’ (October 21st 2016).

Wallinga has published over 100 scientific articles and book chapters (see also the website of Harvard - School of Public Health).

He has been member of the Health Council of the Netherlands. He was on the epidemic board of the journal Epidemiology. He advises several national and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO.

Publications