Professor Mary Cameron
Mary Cameron is a Professor of Medical Entomology in the Department of Disease Control at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine with over 30 years of research experience exploiting arthropod behaviour for the surveillance and control of a wide range of vector-borne diseases and arthropods of public health importance. Mary obtained a BSc in Zoology from Bedford College, University of London, in 1983, and a PhD in Entomology in 1987. She originally joined the Department of Entomology at LSHTM as a research student in 1984, to study pheromone-elicited oviposition behaviour of mosquitoes, and later investigated the role of phlebotomine sandflies in transmission of disease. In 1990, she left LSHTM to take up a post-doc position at the University of Oxford studying the effect of nitrogen on the feeding behaviour of the pea aphid. This led to a one-year ecological study on sandfly/plant/aphid interactions in Peru, to complement an intense longitudinal study of the epidemiology of Andean Cutaneous Leishmaniasis carried out by the host institution, and her later appointment at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine as a Research Fellow, studying the effect of natural sugar and amino acid sources on sandfly behaviour and the development of Leishmania. In 1995, Mary re-joined LSHTM.
In addition to Mary’s research activities Presently, Mary collaborates on the following recently-funded projects: 1) a Bill and Melinda Gates Funded grant to establish a consortium: “Breaking transmission of VL in India: progressing beyond elimination as a public health problem”, 2) a Marie Curie – Initial Training Network (ITN): “Control of leishmaniasis, from bench to bedside and field” (EUROLEISH-NET) (Jan 2015-Dec 2018) - the training programme will bring together public and private centres of excellence in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia to fill the current knowledge gaps and develop innovative methods contributing to the control of leishmaniasis, 3) a Science Without Borders project to develop a xenomonitoring system for lymphatic filariasis elimination in Recife, Brazil, 2015-2018, and 4) a BBSRC studentship (fully funded): ‘How does hybridisation influence life-history parameters and dispersal in Culex pipiens mosquitoes?’ (2015-2019, Principal Supervisor: Dr Simon Carpenter, The Pirbright Institute, University Supervisor: Dr Mary Cameron, LSHTM).
she enjoys transferring her research skills by training others and plays an extensive teaching role in face-to-face MSc teaching at LSHTM (see teaching section below) as Course Director for two MSc courses, and serves as an External Examiner for a similar MSc course in another leading UK institute of public health. Furthermore, Mary wrote the curriculum, and was on the steering committee of a WHO Regional MSc in Medical Entomology and Vector Control hosted at Gezira University, Sudan.
Mary is a Fellow of The Royal Entomological Society, and is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Medical and Veterinary Entomology (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1365-2915).