Research

My research focuses on the role of quantitative modelling in public health. I have specific experience working on infectious disease outbreaks, including real-time forecasting and emergency response.

My interests are broadly

If you’re also interested in these topics (or curious to see what I’m reading), you might enjoy browsing around my research library.

I work in the Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Disease at the LSHTM in London. I’ve been based in the epiforecasts group since 2020.

I currently lead a theme of work around outbreak response at LSHTM. I teach across modules in epidemiology and data science, and advocate for an inclusive working environment at my institution, focussing on disability.

Previously, I worked on the COVID-19 response, contributing research work to the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies and building modelling infrastructure for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Before training in epidemiology, I worked at the Wellcome Trust across both science funding and the investment portfolio.

I wrote my PhD as work “by publication”. This included and evaluated my emergency response work during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2023). My commentary critically reflected the complexities of working in collaborative academic research in response to real-time policy demand.

Research outputs

I develop software using R (occasionally Python), and publish all software in public and under an open license on Github.

Below is a selection of software tools that I’ve led or substantially co-created.

My publications are available at Google Scholar and are open access (please contact me if not available).

Below is a selection of publications that I’ve led or substantially co-created.

Code 
zotero <- "https://api.zotero.org/"
userid <- "users/5456110/"
pubs <- "collections/Z3HDMSU9/items/top"
params <- "?format=bib&style=feminist-economics&linkwrap=1&locale=en-GB"

bib <- readLines(curl::curl(paste0(zotero, userid, pubs, params)))
cat(bib)
Abbott, Sam, Joel Hellewell, Robin N. Thompson, Katharine Sherratt, Hamish P. Gibbs, Nikos I. Bosse, James D. Munday, et al. 2020. “Estimating the Time-Varying Reproduction Number of SARS-CoV-2 Using National and Subnational Case Counts.” Wellcome Open Research 5 (June): 112. doi:10.12688/wellcomeopenres.16006.1.
Abbott, Sam, Katharine Sherratt, Nikos Bosse, Hugo Gruson, Johannes Bracher, and Sebastian Funk. 2022. “Evaluating an Epidemiologically Motivated Surrogate Model of a Multi-Model Ensemble.” medRxiv. doi:10.1101/2022.10.12.22280917.
Abbott, Sam, Katharine Sherratt, Moritz Gerstung, and Sebastian Funk. 2022. “Estimation of the Test to Test Distribution as a Proxy for Generation Interval Distribution for the Omicron Variant in England.” medRxiv. doi:10.1101/2022.01.08.22268920.
Biggs, Joseph R., Ava Kristy Sy, Katharine Sherratt, Oliver J. Brady, Adam J. Kucharski, Sebastian Funk, Mary Anne Joy Reyes, et al. 2021. “Estimating the Annual Dengue Force of Infection from the Age of Reporting Primary Infections across Urban Centres in Endemic Countries.” BMC Medicine 19 (1): 217. doi:10.1186/s12916-021-02101-6.
Cramer, Estee Y., Evan L. Ray, Velma K. Lopez, Johannes Bracher, Andrea Brennen, Alvaro J. Castro Rivadeneira, Aaron Gerding, et al. 2022. “Evaluation of Individual and Ensemble Probabilistic Forecasts of COVID-19 Mortality in the United States.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119 (15): e2113561119. doi:10.1073/pnas.2113561119.
Funk, S., S. Abbott, B. D. Atkins, M. Baguelin, J. K. Baillie, P. Birrell, J. Blake, et al. 2020. “Short-Term Forecasts to Inform the Response to the Covid-19 Epidemic in the UK.” medRxiv, November, 2020.11.11.20220962. doi:10.1101/2020.11.11.20220962.
Gostic, Katelyn M., Lauren McGough, Edward B. Baskerville, Sam Abbott, Keya Joshi, Christine Tedijanto, Rebecca Kahn, et al. 2020. “Practical Considerations for Measuring the Effective Reproductive Number, Rt.” PLOS Computational Biology 16 (12): e1008409. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008409.
Munday, James D., Katharine Sherratt, Sophie Meakin, Akira Endo, Carl A. B. Pearson, Joel Hellewell, Sam Abbott, et al. 2021. “Implications of the School-Household Network Structure on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission under School Reopening Strategies in England.” Nature Communications 12 (1): 1942. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-22213-0.
Palmer, Joseph, Katharine Sherratt, Richard Martin-Nielsen, Jonnie Bevan, Hamish Gibbs, Cmmid COVID-19 Working Group, Sebastian Funk, and Sam Abbott. 2021. “Covidregionaldata: Subnational Data for COVID-19 Epidemiology.” Journal of Open Source Software 6 (63): 3290. doi:10.21105/joss.03290.
Pavelka, Martin, Kevin Van-Zandvoort, Sam Abbott, Katharine Sherratt, Marek Majdan, Cmmid Covid, Stefan Flasche, and Sebastian Funk. 2021. “The Impact of Population-Wide Rapid Antigen Testing on SARS-CoV-2 Prevalence in Slovakia.” Science 372 (6542): 635–641. doi:10.1126/science.abf9648.
Sherratt, Katharine. 2024. “Collaborative Outbreak Modelling for Decision Support: Evaluating Trade-Offs from Multi-Model Combination.” London: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. https://www.researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/4674767/1/2024_EPH_PhD_Sherratt_K.pdf.
Sherratt, Katharine, Sam Abbott, Sophie R. Meakin, Joel Hellewell, James D. Munday, Nikos Bosse, Mark Jit, and Sebastian Funk. 2021. “Exploring Surveillance Data Biases When Estimating the Reproduction Number: With Insights into Subpopulation Transmission of COVID-19 in England.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376 (1829): 20200283. doi:10.1098/rstb.2020.0283.
Sherratt, Katharine, AC Carnegie, A Kucharski, A Cori, CAB Pearson, CI Jarvis, C Overton, et al. 2024. “Improving Modelling for Epidemic Responses: Reflections from Members of the UK Infectious Disease Modelling Community on Their Experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Wellcome Open Research 9 (12). doi:10.12688/wellcomeopenres.19601.1.
Sherratt, Katharine, Anna C. Carnegie, Adam Kucharski, Anne Cori, Carl A. B. Pearson, Edward M. Hill, Elizabeth Fearon, et al. 2025. “Improving Modelling for Epidemic Response: A Progress Update from a Community of UK Infectious Disease Modellers.” Interface Focus 15 (4): 20250007. doi:10.1098/rsfs.2025.0007.
Sherratt, Katharine, Rok Grah, Bastian Prasse, Friederike Becker, Jamie McLean, Sam Abbott, and Sebastian Funk. 2025. “The Influence of Model Structure and Geographic Specificity on Predictive Accuracy among European COVID-19 Forecasts.” medRxiv. doi:10.1101/2025.04.10.25325611.
Sherratt, Katharine, Hugo Gruson, Rok Grah, Helen Johnson, Rene Niehus, Bastian Prasse, Frank Sandmann, et al. 2023. “Predictive Performance of Multi-Model Ensemble Forecasts of COVID-19 across European Nations.” Edited by Amy Wesolowski, Neil M Ferguson, Jeffrey L Shaman, and Sen Pei. eLife 12 (April): e81916. doi:10.7554/eLife.81916.
Sherratt, Katharine, Ajitesh Srivastava, Kylie Ainslie, David E. Singh, Aymar Cublier, Maria Cristina Marinescu, Jesus Carretero, et al. 2024. “Characterising Information Gains and Losses When Collecting Multiple Epidemic Model Outputs.” Epidemics, March, 100765. doi:10.1016/j.epidem.2024.100765.