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The Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response has awarded three prizes to early career researchers from across LSHTM and external partners to recognise their contributions to the field of epidemic preparedness.

Join the Centre in celebrating the winners, hear about their award-winning research and have your chance to ask questions during a Q&A session.

The prize categories are:

• Research Degree Student Prize: For recent work on preparedness/response activities (including in the year before joining LSHTM, if relevant).
• Resource Prize: For acting as an epidemic preparedness/response resource for external groups or organisations (e.g. providing methods or analysis, situational awareness, training).

2025 Centre for Epidemic Preparedness and Response prize winners

Student Degree Prize: Georgia Venner

Winning project title: How health systems software factors affect frontline health workers‚ care practices and response efforts during infectious disease outbreaks in the Rohingya refugee camps, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Resource Prize: Rania Al-Mukhtar

Winning project title: Mainstreaming Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD) control into national health systems: A scoping review to strengthen epidemic preparedness and response.

Resource Prize: Nadine Beckmann (LSHTM), Yang Zhao (LSHTM), Shelley Lees (LSHTM), Sophie Everest (UKHSA), Olive Leonard (UKHSA)

Winning project title: Humanising the response: integrating community-based, qualitative evidence into outbreak response and preparedness.

Speakers

Georgia Venner

Georgia Venner, MPH, is a PhD candidate at the °®ÍþÄÌapp of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), specialising in social science approaches to outbreak response, particularly in refugee settings. She holds a Master of Public Health from Canada, and works across academia and humanitarian practice, applying interdisciplinary evidence and social science methods. Her doctoral research explores the social dynamics, improvisations of care, and power relations within frontline healthcare workforces—including refugee health workers—during infectious disease outbreaks in the Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh.

Alongside her research, Georgia works as a global health consultant and currently serves as Project Coordinator for a capacity-building initiative led by LSHTM, supporting the professional development of public health workers and students in Ukraine.

Previously, Georgia held social science research and evaluation roles with humanitarian organisations and has extensive experience managing large-scale health programmes for international NGOs in refugee and crisis-affected settings.

Rania Al-Mukhtar

Rania Al-Mukhtar is a medical student currently enrolled in the MSc Public Health at the °®ÍþÄÌapp of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Her academic focus is health equity, health economic and systems, health services leadership, and organisational management.

Previously, she has worked closely with Westminster City Council and local Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations to co-design and lead successful neighbourhood-based projects focusing on early intervention strategies to address issues such as unhealthy diets, social isolation and the misuse of technology among children.

Currently, Rania is working on a project to evaluate the current practices in neglected tropical disease (NTD) integration and mainstreaming interventions, with the goal of supporting endemic and low-income countries in managing these diseases more effectively.

Rania combines her academic expertise in public health with hands-on experience in community development, focusing on creating sustainable solutions to health challenges. She is dedicated to using her research and leadership skills to drive positive change in local communities and the broader healthcare landscape.

Nadine Beckmann

Nadine Beckmann is an Associate Professor in Social Science at LSHTM, where she co-leads the UK-Public Health Rapid Support Team’s RCCE/Social Science team, together with Sophie Everest. An anthropologist by background, she works on integrating community-based, social science evidence into epidemic outbreak preparedness and response.

In the past, she has conducted ethnographic research on a broad range of topics, including HIV and AIDS, Islam, ethics, collective action, sexual practice and reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa.

Before joining the UK-PHRST/LSHTM, she taught anthropology at the University of Roehampton, development studies at the University of Leeds, and held research fellowships at Bradford University and the University of Oxford.

Olive Leonard

Olive Leonard is the Equity & Human Rights Officer at the UK Public Health Rapid support team, where she supports on the delivery on Protection, Gender and Inclusion (PGI) and Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) delivery.

As part of the UK-PHRST, she supports equitable and inclusive approaches to outbreak response, research and capacity strengthening. Olive has contributed to responses through Rapid Gender Analysis for diseases such as mpox and Marburg and is dedicated to building public health systems that are built on equitable and community-led approaches.

Sophie Everest

Sophie Everest is the Senior Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) specialist at the UK-PHRST, where she co-leads the RCCE/Social Science team, alongside Nadine Beckmann. Sophie has experience working in participatory ways with communities affected by conflict, natural disasters and infectious disease outbreaks in humanitarian settings, including in Jordan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Mozambique, Ukraine, Zimbabwe and Rwanda.

Prior to joining the UK-PHRST, Sophie worked as the Senior Community Engagement and Accountability adviser for the International Federation of the Red Cross for the Africa region. 

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