People
Birgitte Freiesleben de Blasio
Professor and team scientific leader
Email: Birgitte.Freiesleben.DeBlasio@fhi.no
Birgitte’s research is focused on developing mathematical models to study the spread of infectious diseases and predict the effectiveness of various control strategies. She is also interested in understanding social contact structures and methods related to social network analysis. She has an MSc and PhD from the Niels Bohr Institute in theoretical physics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she headed the COVID-19 modelling team, a collaboration between NIPH, the University of Oslo, Norwegian Computing Centre and Telenor. She is scientific director at the NIPH and holds a position as Professor II at Oslo Centre for Biostatistics and Epidemiology, the University of Oslo.
Marissa Erin LeBlanc
Section head & team manager, PhD
Email: MarissaErin.LeBlanc@fhi.no
Alfonso Diz-Lois Palomares
Researcher & PhD candidate
Email: Alfonso.Diz-LoisPalomares@fhi.no
Alfonso is a Chemist by training (B.S. , MSc.) with a Master of Science in Applied Physics and is currently pursuing a PhD in High Dimensional SMC methods at the faculty of Mathematics at UiO. As a researcher, he has worked in the application and development of numerical methods for optimization and Bayesian inference. At FHI, he has been part of the COVID-19 modelling team since the beginning of the pandemic and he has worked extensively in the context of infectious disease modeling and environmental epidemiology.
Francesco Di Ruscio
Researcher
Email: Francesco.DiRuscio@fhi.no
Francesco holds a M.Sc. in Particle Physics in Rome and a Ph.D. in infectious disease modelling from the University of Oslo. His interests lie in investigating the dynamics of infectious disease transmission and public health interventions through mathematical models, with a focus on advanced computational techniques, including agent-based models. As a researcher at NIPH, Francesco has been part of the COVID-19 modelling team. Additionally, he is engaged in researching the spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in healthcare and community settings. Beyond infectious diseases, Francesco has been involved in modelling the impact of climate change on human health.
Gunnar Øyvind Isaksson Rø
Researcher
Email: GunnarOyvindIsaksson.Ro@fhi.no
Gunnar is interested in how statistical and mathematical modelling can improve surveillance and risk assement for infectious diseases combined with an interest in how to correctly analyse infectious disease data. He joined NIPH in 2019 and was a member of the covid-19 modelling group through the pandemic and has PHD in Particle Physics from Durhan University and a MSC in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Hilde Kjelgaard Brustad
Researcher
Email:
Hilde is interested in how population behavior impacts the spread of infectious diseases. She has a background in applied mathematics and entered the world of statistics through her PhD in applied statistics and forensic genetics, from Norwegian University of Life Sciences. During the pandemic she joined a collaboration between academia and public health agencies in the Nordic countries, with focus on infectious disease modelling. She was introduced to the modelling environment at FHI through this collaboration. Hilde has a researcher position at Oslo Center for Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Oslo University Hospital, doing statistical advising in the Clinical Trials Unit, combined with research on infectious diseases modelling.
Ida-Marie Fauske Johansson
PhD candidate
Email:
Anja Bråthen Kristoffersen
Senior Researcher
Email: AnjaBrathen.Kristoffersen@fhi.no
Jonas Christoffer Lindstrøm
Researcher
Email: JonasChristoffer.Lindstrom@fhi.no
Jørgen Eriksson Midtbø
Researcher
Email: JorgenEriksson.Midtbo@fhi.no
Jørgen enjoys anything that has to do with Monte Carlo methods. He has a PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Oslo, and joined the NIPH modelling group in 2021 at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. He came from a position working with mobility data at Norwegian telecom company Telenor, and thus has broad knowledge of human mobility data. Since joining NIPH, he has among other things worked on scenario modelling of covid-19 using agent-based models, modelling of varicella and herpes zoster vaccination and modelling of hepatitis C. He is also involved in surveillance of covid-19 vaccine effectiveness using Norwegian registry data.