Biography

Esther van Kleef is based at the Oxford Nuffield Department of Medicine, working as a technical consultant for the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the global surveillance of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), while holding an honorary position as assistant professor at University Medical Centre Utrecht.

Esther has experience with quantitative methodology including mathematical modelling and handling of surveillance data, which she has combined with hands-on field experience in HIC and LMIC. Esther’s research interests include understanding the transmission-dynamics of AMR and emerging infectious diseases, and the effectiveness of infection prevention and control strategies. She leads interdisciplinary work that aims to improve the surveillance, monitoring and response of emerging infectious diseases from a data science context, both in Europe and Africa. She is particularly interested in optimising the collection and use of conventional and innovative surveillance data sources for analytics to inform public health policies and decision-making.  

Esther completed a PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. This was followed by academic positions related to modelling the transmission-dynamics of AMR at Oxford University (Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Thailand) and Public Health England (former UKHSA). Prior to WHO, Esther worked as a senior scientist (infectious disease epidemiology) at the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp and epidemiologist at the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment. In the latter role, she coordinated AMR research informing the national surveillance strategy and ten consultant epidemiologists working on AMR surveillance at a regional level. In 2019-2020, she was involved as a WHO consultant in the 10th outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, leading a team of epidemiologists, analysts and data managers to provide real-time outbreak analytics for decision-making.

She is an invited member to several advisory groups and global networks, and lead-PI or co-I to various academic research projects involving AMR, COVID-19 and Epidemic Intelligence.