Centre for Digital Public Health & Emergencies, Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (UCL) 

Prof Patty Kostkova is Professor in Digital Health and the Director of UCL IRDR Centre for Digital Public Health in Emergencies. She is a world leading researcher in the novel interdisciplinary domain of digital public health. Her research covers wide spectrum of digital public health ranging from mobile gamified training app to combat the zika virus in Brazil, increasing resilience and disaster preparedness in women in Nepal to strengthening antibiotic stewardship using game-based training in Nigeria and DR-TB management in South Africa. Her team’s research into Big Data for public and global health includes one of the first studies exploring the potential of Twitter for early-warning of swineflu 2009. During the COVID-19 emergency, Prof Kostkova has been advising WHO on a digital strategy in the context of COVID-19, while her team rapidly prototyped a gamified app for citizens to monitor compliance with government stay-at-home policy and lifestyle changes to improve wellbeing, and also work with WHO on analyzing social media discourse on Covid-19.