Mary Cameron

Mary Cameron is a Professor of Medical Entomology in the Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). She obtained a BSc in Zoology in 1983, and a PhD in Entomology in 1987, from the University of London.

Mary has over 30 years’ experience in delivering international level field and laboratory research focusing on the surveillance and control of a wide range of vector-borne diseases, particularly leishmaniasis. During this time, Mary has developed strong collaborative networks on neglected tropical diseases in multiple disease endemic countries. She is presently the Principal Investigator of the Bill and Melinda Gates Programme: Setting the Post-Elimination Agenda for Kala-azar in India (SPEAK India). The focus of the operational research is to work towards sustained elimination of visceral leishmaniasis in the Indian Sub-continent. The work comprises four synergistic pillars: surveillance, mathematical modelling, disease transmission and health systems.

In addition, Mary is currently a member of the steering committees of the MRC-funded research project ‘The epidemiology of scrub typhus and rickettisial infections in a highly endemic rural setting in South India: population-based cohort study’, and the BBSRC-funded ‘The Global Vector Hub’. Until July 2021, Mary was Co-Director of a BBSRC GCRF network ‘The Gnatwork: building capacity for research on neglected tropical vectors’ (with Dr Simon Carpenter, The Pirbright Institute).

Externally, Mary has held several societal advisory roles and was Editor-in-Chief of Medical and Veterinary Entomology (2012-2020). Current roles include Member of the WHO Regional Technical Advisory Group to support the Kala-azar elimination programme in the South-East Asia Region (since 2017) and External Examiner for MSc Global Health Course (University of Edinburgh) (since 2018). Mary is a co-founder and Director of LSHTM’s first spin out company, Vecotech Ltd, which serves as a vehicle to support commercial exploitation of intellectual property generated by vector control research at LSHTM and other academic organisations. The company is now operating as Arctech Innovation Ltd.