Madeleine Thomson Ph.D is the senior climate change lead and acting head of the Our Planet Our Health programme at the Wellcome Trust; a politically & financially independent foundation focused on improving the health of everyone by helping great ideas to thrive.

The Trust support researchers, policy makers & the public in tackling today’s health challenges including those associated with climate change. Dr Thomson is also a visiting Professor at Lancaster University, UK and an Emeritus professor at Columbia University, New York where she previously held senior research positions at the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society and the Mailman School of Public Health.

While at IRI she served as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Early Warning Systems for Malaria and Other Climate-Sensitive Diseases (including meningococcal meningitis and ZikaV) and was co-chair of the cross Columbia working group on global health security.

Originally trained as a field entomologist she spent much of her early career undertaking operational research to support large-scale health interventions in Africa (e.g. the national impregnated bednet programme in The Gambia). She was educated at the University of Sheffield (BSc), Imperial College London (MSc) and the University of Liverpool (PhD).