Prof Sian Clarke

Sian is a Professor of Epidemiology and her research interest is in infectious disease epidemiology, public health and development in low-income countries. The primary aim of her research is the development and evaluation of disease control strategies to improve health in resource-constrained environments, with a specific focus on malaria. Sian has a particular interest in the epidemiology and control of malaria in school-aged children in sub-Saharan Africa, and the consequences of asymptomatic malaria infection on anaemia, cognition and education. She also has a keen interest in access to medicines and the quality of care, and public health interventions to improve the treatment of malaria and other childhood infections by community health workers, private clinics and drug shops. She has led numerous intervention studies in sub-Saharan Africa, including randomised controlled trials to evaluate the impact of (i) malaria control in schools; (ii) seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) and nutritional interventions in pre-school children; (iii) perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) in early childhood; (iv) malaria prevention during pregnancy; (v) use of malaria rapid diagnostic tests (mRDTs) by CHWs and drug shop vendors; and (vi) integrated community case management (iCCM). She has a strong commitment to interdisciplinary research, and the power of bringing insights and methods from multiple disciplines to work together to understand and search for solutions to pressing public health challenges. Sian is the LSHTM Programme Director of the MSc One Health, and LSHTM Co-Director of the OneZoo Centre for Doctoral Training, a multi-university PhD programme to address the environmental drivers of zoonoses. From 2017 to 2021 she was Co-Director of the LSHTM Malaria Centre – a multidisciplinary cross-faculty network of over 200 malaria researchers at LSHTM. Email: sian.clarke@lshtm.ac.uk