Our People

Andrew Tatem is a Professor of spatial demography and epidemiology at the University of Southampton and the Director and Founder of WorldPop (www.worldpop.org). He leads a group of 30 researchers and data scientists. He is interested in how populations, their characteristics and their dynamics can be mapped at high resolution, and how the outputs can be used to support decision-making and policy.

His research has led to pioneering approaches to the use and integration of satellite, survey, cell phone and census data to map the distributions, demographics and movement patterns of vulnerable populations for disease, disaster and development applications. Recent work has focussed on capacity strengthening and co-development of bespoke spatial demographic models for population estimation and mapping with ministries of health and national statistical offices in more than 20 different countries around the World.

He also runs international collaborations with UN agencies and data providers, and leads multiple research and operational projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, CIFF, World Bank, GAVI, Clinton Health Access Initiative and others. WorldPop’s demographic datasets now form the default subnational population data for most UN agencies, and is used, for example, in assessing populations at risk for aid quantification, as denominators in WHO health metrics, and operationally for census and survey planning, and in multiple government health intervention campaigns.