Samir Bhatt - Biography#

Samir's early PhD and postdoctoral work focused on adaptive evolution in Influenza, including landmark publications on the 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain. He transitioned to spatial epidemiology, where he estimated the global dengue disease burden—a study widely used by WHO and GAVI, and the most cited paper on dengue. He later led a collaborative program assessing malaria control in Africa during the Millennium Development Goals era and continues to contribute to WHO’s yearly malaria reports. He was also a contributor to the Lancet Commission on malaria eradication. Samir has worked with the U.S. Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC), providing analyses critical to securing Congressional funding and shaping World AIDS Day messaging. He bridges social sciences and public health, having charted housing quality progress in sub-Saharan Africa and linked housing conditions to malaria prevention and broader health outcomes. He also analyzed travel accessibility to cities and healthcare facilities, highlighting their impact on health. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Samir developed methods to estimate the effects of interventions on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, significantly influencing recommendations and methodologies globally. His group identified and characterized the Alpha and Gamma variants of concern, and he advised the governments of New York, the UK, and Denmark. Samir has made significant theoretical and mathematical contributions to epidemiology, including models for WHO’s malaria bednet allocation strategy and machine learning frameworks for disease burden estimation.

Samir recent research focuses on aging, human speech, evolutionary theory and zoonotic illness. Theoretically, his recent research focuses on branching processes, quantum computing, phylogenetics and artificial intelligence. Samir is an ISI highly cited researcher with 197 research articles and a H-index of 94. He is also a fellow of the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences.