Marie studied Environmental Science at the University East Anglia before undertaking a PhD on wildlife epidemiology at the University of Stirling. She joined the Institute for Animal Health to investigate the epidemiology of scrapie in UK sheep, followed by a spell at the Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England) as an Epidemiology and Surveillance Scientist.

Since 2009, Marie has worked on big data projects at the University of Liverpool.  She has built the world’s most comprehensive animal and human pathogens database by systematically annotating and integrating existing and emerging published data on vectors, hosts and their pathogens (incorporating important metadata alongside over 42M DNA/RNA sequences to date) to prevent and tackle disease around the globe (www.zoonosis.ac.uk/eid2). For work involving prioritising diseases and studying multiple infections simultaneously, there is no better source of information than combining the work of many scientists in a structured, consistent manner.

Marie also works on another big data project “Integrate” which is combining the use of statistics, modern microbiology and bioinformatics with routine surveillance for gastrointestinal disease to improve how we detect and investigate disease outbreaks.