Professor Nigel French
Distinguished Professor Nigel French
Management Group
Nigel French is Massey University’s Distinguished Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Public Health, Co-Director of Te Niwha, the infectious Diseases Research Platform and Emeritus Director of the NZ Food Safety Science and Research Centre. He was an inaugural Co-Director of One Health Aotearoa with Professor David Murdoch and holds an honorary Professorship in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Otago.
He has been working on the epidemiology, prevention and control of infectious diseases for nearly 30 years and over that time has published over 300 journal articles. He is a Fellow of Te Apārangi, the Royal Society of New Zealand in recognition of his leadership of research programmes that contributed to reducing the burden of infectious disease in New Zealand. He has been the recipient of a number of awards; including three Massey University Research Medals (individual, team and supervisor awards) and the MPI award for significant contribution to food safety. He was a member of the ESR COVID-19 Team that won the Science New Zealand Team and Supreme Awards in 2020 and a co-author on the paper led by Dr Sarah Jefferies that won the Liley Medal in 2020. He is a member of the Ministry of Health COVID-19 Technical Advisory Group (TAG) and the COVID-19 Protection Framework Expert Advisory Group and has been a member of the United Kingdom Fleming Fund Expert Advisory Group since 2016.
Prior to joining Massey University in 2004, Professor French held a number of academic positions at the University of Bristol and, between 1996 and 2004, at the University of Liverpool, where he was Professor of Veterinary Epidemiology. He graduated as a veterinary surgeon from the University of Bristol in 1987, and in 1993 he was awarded a PhD (Bristol) and a Masters degree in epidemiology (University of London, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), funded by a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology.
Expertise:
- Epidemiology
- Veterinary medicine
- Foodborne and waterborne diseases
Email:
