Prof Ben Cowling is currently Chair Professor of Epidemiology and head of the Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at the University of Hong Kong, and co-Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control. He conducts research into the epidemiology of respiratory virus infections, with a focus on transmission dynamics and the effectiveness of control measures including vaccination. Since early 2020 he has conducted research on the epidemiology and control of COVID-19 including highly cited publications in NEJM, Science and Nature Medicine. He holds major research grants to study how individual measures of immunity translate to population immunity, and to estimate the impact of public health measures for influenza and COVID-19. He has authored more than 750 peer-reviewed journal publications to date. He is Editor-in-Chief of Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, and an Associate Editor of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. In June 2021 he was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for services to public health and COVID-19 research.