Research Field Guide
How to Get an Epidemiology Research Position
To get a Epidemiology research position, find professors who are actively publishing in Epidemiology, read what they actually work on, and email one of them a short, specific note. Much of the work is computational, so you can offer to contribute remotely.
Below are 12 professors publishing in Epidemiology right now, what each is working on, and how to reach out. Every name and topic is pulled from real, recent publication data, not a generic list.
Epidemiology professors who are actively publishing
| Professor | Institution | Recent research focus |
|---|---|---|
| Freddie Bray | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique | Cervical Cancer and HPV Research |
| Valery L. Feigin | Auckland University of Technology | Acute Ischemic Stroke Management |
| Graeme J. Hankey | Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science | Acute Ischemic Stroke Management |
| Suzanne Barker‐Collo | University of Auckland | Acute Ischemic Stroke Management |
| Mayowa Owolabi | University of Ibadan | Acute Ischemic Stroke Management |
| Louisa Degenhardt | UNSW Sydney | Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes |
| Jean‐Louis Vincent | Université Libre de Bruxelles | Sepsis Diagnosis and Treatment |
| Derrick Bennett | Population Council | Acute Ischemic Stroke Management |
| Nicholas G. Martin | University of Wollongong | Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes |
| Carlos A Castañeda-Orjuela | Universidad Nacional de Colombia | Respiratory viral infections research |
| Reza Malekzadeh | Shiraz University of Medical Sciences | Liver Disease Diagnosis and Treatment |
| Charles Wolfe | St Thomas' Hospital | Acute Ischemic Stroke Management |
Sourced from OpenAlex publication records. Click a name to see their full profile and recent papers.
What Epidemiology research involves
Epidemiology studies the patterns and causes of disease in populations. Active areas you will see include cancer and HPV research, stroke management, liver disease, substance abuse outcomes, and infectious disease surveillance. The day-to-day work is largely analytical and remote-friendly: cleaning datasets, running statistical models, and conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Data is usually collected by clinical or field collaborators, and the epidemiologist's job is to make sense of it. That makes the field one of the more accessible for students who can handle data, because a professor can hand you a dataset or a review to work on from anywhere. Strong statistics and careful, honest analysis are what labs value most.
How to email a Epidemiology professor
Epidemiology runs on data and evidence synthesis, so lead with analytical skills. Offer to help with a systematic review or meta-analysis, clean and analyze a dataset, or run statistical models, and name your tools (R, Stata, SAS) and any biostatistics coursework. Reference one recent paper, on disease surveillance or a specific condition they study, and ask a precise question about the methods, like how they handled confounding. Most of this can be done remotely, so make that easy for the professor by proposing a concrete, self-contained task. Skip generic enthusiasm; a clear offer to do one real analysis or review is far more persuasive.
Epidemiology overlaps with nearby fields. If you are casting a wider net, look at research positions in Public Health, Immunology, Psychology, and Computational Biology.