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Professor James McCaw

I am Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Melbourne, and part of Melbourne Mathematical Biology in the School of Mathematics and Statistics. I was recently awarded an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (2024 – 29).

My appointment is split between the School of Mathematics and Statistics and the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, where I am a senior member of the Infectious Disease Dynamics Unit in the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

My interests lie in the application of mathematics, computation and data-analytics to a broad range of problems in infectious diseases biology, epidemiology and public health.

My research team is supported through funding from the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, and government departments including Health, Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence.

If you are interested in working or studying in the group, please contact me.

Recent news

May 2024

I have been awarded an ARC Laureate Fellowship "New mathematics for infectious diseases: preparing for the next pandemic" (2024 – 29), which will support my team's research over the next 5 years. As part of this, I will be recruiting a number of post-doctoral staff and graduate research students. If you are interested in joining the gteam, please contact me.

January 2024

Led by Dr Freya Shearer (Head, Infectious Disease Dynamics Unit), I am a chief investigator on an ARC Discovery Project "Optimising disease surveillance to support decision-making" (2024 – 26). The grant will support our research on surveillance system design to maximise public health impact.

Melbourne Mathematical Biology

Our Melbourne Mathematical Biology group in the School of Mathematics and Statistics has put together a series of videos describing our research.

COVID-19

Since January 2020 I have supported Australia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic through provision of expert advice to key national committees. Between January 2020 and April 2022 I was one of three invited expert members of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee, a sub-committee of the National Cabinet. I have worked with the Chief Medical Officer of Australia and the states' and territories' Chief Health Officers to guide our response to the pandemic. I am a member of the Communicable Disease Network of Australia and have contributed to the development of the Australian National Disease Surveillance Plan for COVID-19. I co-lead with Dr Freya Shearer a national consortium providing situational assessment to government, delivering a weekly report on the status of the epidemic across all Australian jurisdictions. We provide nowcasts and forecasts of epidemic activity including assessment of anticipated clinical loads. I have also supported a team of nearly 40 modellers, epidemiologists and biostatisticians providing additional modelling support for pandemic preparedness and response throughout the pandemic in partnership with the Doherty Institute.

Technical reports COVID-19 epidemiology and modelling

Note: Peer-reviewed publications and pre-prints can be found here.

1. [10 January 2024] Series of weekly COVID-19 epidemic situational assessment reports submitted to the Australian Government Department of Health Office of Health Protection from April 2020 to December 2023

2. [12 August 2022] Technical report: Situational assessment of COVID-19 in Australia

3. [12 November 2021] Doherty Institute modelling by jurisdiction sizes, COVID-19 technical report

4. [17 September 2021] Doherty Modelling Interim Report to National Cabinet, COVID-19 technical report

5. [28 May 2021] Technical report: Situational assessment of COVID-19 in Australia

6. [17 July 2020] Technical report: Estimating temporal variation in transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and physical distancing behaviour in Australia

7. [15 May 2020] Technical report: Estimating temporal variation in transmission of COVID-19 and adherence to social distancing measures in Australia

8. [5 May 2020] Technical report: Estimating temporal variation in transmission of COVID-19 and adherence to social distancing measures in Australia

9. [14 April 2020] Technical report: Estimating the case detection rate and temporal variation in transmission of COVID-19 in Australia

10. [7 April 2020] Research articles on border measures and hospitalisation capacity requirements

Media and other contributions

1.  [24 August 2023] With COVID now endemic, modelling suggests targeted protection will be more effective than blanket measures, The Conversation

2. [13 June 2023] We’re in another COVID wave. But it’s not like the others, The Conversation

3. [27 July 2022] New COVID variants may be more transmissible but that doesn’t mean the R0 – or basic reproduction number – has increased, The Conversation

4. [30 November 2021] Pandemic decision making supported by Australia’s national research cloud, Nectar, Australian Research Data Commons Media Release

5. [6 October 2021] Tired of lockdown rules? Our analysis shows most Australians have curbed mixing and helped suppress COVID, The Conversation

6. [18 June 2021] Informing the COVID-19 response: mathematicians' contributions to pandemic planning and response

7. [7 December 2020] Australia's Pandemic Part 1: The 12.39am email that triggered Australia's response to COVID-19, The Age

8. [2 December 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: COVID-19 risks

9. [19 October 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: COVID normal

10. [19 October 2020] Interview on ABC Radio AM: Melburnians wake up to eased restrictions, but no relief yet for many struggling businesses

11. [17 October 2020] Take heart, Melbourne: it’s time for the next step in easing Covid restrictions, The Guardian Opinion

12. [9 October 2020] Sorry Melbourne. The chance of reaching an average 5 COVID-19 cases by mid-October is under 50%, The Conversation

13. [28 September 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: Victorian COVID roadmap

14. [14 September 2020] Interview on 3AW with Neil Mitchell: The COVID-19 roadmap target an epidemiologist says needs review interview

15. [12 September 2020] Virus modelling far from perfect, The Australian Opinion

16. [28 August 2020] Special Guest on ABC The Virus Podcast

17. [18 August 2020] Interview on ABC Radio AM: Tough interstate borders keeping families apart for public health

18. [14 August 2020] Panel member, National Science Week Launch: The STEM experts guiding Australia’s Covid-19 success give behind-the-scenes insights for National Science Week, Science & Technology Australia

19. [6 August 2020] Interview on 3AW with Neil Mitchell: `Just like the weather': Epidemiologist responds to predicted peak leak

20. [30 July 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: Victoria posts record COVID-19 cases and deaths

21. [22 July 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: Record number of new COVID-19 cases

22. [6 July 2020] Interview on ABC Radio AM: Public housing outbreak has ’explosive potential’ for covid surge

23. [3 July 2020] Special Guest on ABC The Virus Podcast

24. [1 July 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: COVID-19 Victorian update

25. [25 June 2020] Interview on ABC Radio PM: Virus testing blitz underway in Melbourne suburbs

26. [24 June 2020] Interview on ABC Radio Drive with Rafael Epstein (Melbourne): COVID-19

27. [22 June 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: COVID-19 in Australia

28. [22 June 2020] Special Guest on Channel 9’s Today Show

29. [3 June 2020] ACEMS The Random Sample Podcast: The Maths Behind Australia's Response to COVID-19

30. [18 May 2020] Interview on ABC 7.30: Easing coronavirus restrictions

31. [24 April 2020] Interview on 7NEWS.com.au: Coronavirus testing requirements across Australia to be softened to stop spread

32. [23 April 2020] Australian Science Media Centre Press conference: When can Australia start to lift COVID-19 restrictions? Ask an epidemiologist

33. [19 April 2020] Special Guest on 3RRR Radiotherapy: COVID-19

34. [15 April 2020] Life Beyond Coronavirus: The Expert View (Episode 1), Pursuit (The University of Melbourne)

35. [1 April 2020] Models have supported Australia’s response to COVID-19, Cosmos Magazine

36. [11 March 2020] 13 things tech companies can do to fight coronavirus: An open letter from technologists, epidemiologists & medical professionals, Tech vs COVID-19

37. [4 February 2020] What maths can tell us about the spread of the new coronavirus, Pursuit (The University of Melbourne)

May 2018

With our collaborators at DST Group, Rob Moss and I have been awarded the CivSec 2018 Innovation Award for Disaster Relief, Emergency Management and Humanitarian Services and the overall CivSec 2018 National Innovation Award for Civil Security for our outbreak detection and epidemic forecasting work.

November 2017

I have been promoted to Professor and also now hold an honorary appointment at the Doherty Institute.

October 2017

ACREME, the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Malaria Elimination, on which I am an investigator, was announced this week, led by Professor Stephen Rogerson at the Doherty Institute. We'll be looking to hire new staff in 2018 to deliver on a 5-year program of research combining clinical, therapeutic, diagnostic, mathematical and epidemiological approaches, so contact me if you are interested in hearing more.

November 2016

With Associate Professor Julie Simpson, Dr Federico Frascoli (Swinburne) and Associate Professor Jane Heffernan (York, Canada), I received an ARC Discovery Project "Mathematical and statistical methods for modelling invivo pathogen dynamics" (2017 - 19). The grant will support our research on within-host dynamics of influenza infection and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling for malaria.

August 2016

With Professor Leann Tilley, I received the 2016 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Infectious Diseases Research.