Professor Calum Semple OBE
Professor of Outbreak Medicine and Child Health, University of Liverpool
Calum Semple has studied severe virus disease outbreaks since 1989 in the fields of diagnostics, clinical characterization and clinical trials. He was a founder member of ISARIC the International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium.
He has led studies of COVID-19, MERS, Monkeypox, Ebola (EVD and Survivors), Influenza and Bronchiolitis, at times field-deployed in austere circumstances. He is a Senior Government Clinical Advisor siting on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (COVID-19 response) and the New Emerging Respiratory Viral Treats Advisory Group (NERVTAG), and a former member of the WHO Scientific Technical Advisory Committee for Ebola Emergencies (STAC-EE) and UK Pandemic Flu group.
He was appointed Honorary Respiratory Physician at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital Liverpool in 2006. In 2016 he and his team were awarded the Queen’s Ebola Medal for Service in West Africa 2014-16 and in 2019 he received a Commonwealth Association Award for subsequent work with Ebola survivors in Sierra Leone. He was appointed Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday honours 2020 for his role in the COVID-19 response.