Prof. Dirk Udo PFEIFFER

Professor Dirk Pfeiffer is Chair Professor of One Health at City University’s School of Veterinary Medicine. Dirk graduated from Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany in 1984 with a Degree in Veterinary Medicine. He went on to complete a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine at the same university in 1986. Following this Dirk went on to do a Postgraduate Diploma in Tropical Veterinary Medicine at the Free University of Berlin, which involved fieldwork in Kenya, Somalia, Malaysia and Thailand. In 1987, Dirk moved to Massey University, New Zealand to complete a PhD in veterinary epidemiology and remained there for 11 years, where he became a Lecturer in Production Medicine and Epidemiology in 1992 and was appointed as Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Epidemiology in 1996. Dirk joined the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London in 1999 as a Professor in Veterinary Epidemiology. From 2015 until 2017, Dirk held the part-time role as Chief Epidemiologist at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) of the UK Government. Since Nov 2016, he has been Chair Professor of One Health at City University’s newly established Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences. He continues to hold a part-time position at the RVC. Dirk is also an Adjunct Professor at the China Animal Health & Epidemiology Centre, Qingdao, China.

Dirk also has extensive membership of Advisory Committees and Expert Panels: Chair of Animal Health Surveillance Governance Board for England and Wales, UK (2015-2016); European Commission's DG SANTE Surveillance Task Force (2009 to 2016); Member of editorial board of the international scientific journal BMC Veterinary Research (since 2005); Associate editor of the international scientific journal Spatial and Spatiotemporal Epidemiology (since 2009); International Advisory Committee for Review of Food Safety and Biosecurity Programmes of Singapore's Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (since 2002); Chair of AHVLA review surveillance panel (2012); Chair of Epidemiology and Wildlife Risks sub-group of Defra's bovine tuberculosis Science Advisory Body (from 2008 - 2013); Member of epidemiology sub-group of OIE/FAO Network on Avian Influenza (OFFLU), Paris, France (from 2008); Member of Research Sub-committee of Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, London, UK (from 2011-2015); Member of International Scientific Peer Review Panel for National Institute of Animal Health for National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Japan (2011).

Dirk’s research has been widespread and varied, but with a special emphasis on translation of science into policy, evidence-based veterinary medicine, analytical epidemiology, advanced multivariate techniques, spatial and temporal analysis of epidemiological data, development of animal health information systems, computer modelling of animal disease, and field ecological research methods.

Dirk has co-authored 237 peer-reviewed publications associated with an ISI WoS h-index of 37 (as of November 2016).

Current funding as principal investigator: £1.7 Mill for a BBSRC/DfID funded project entitled 'Controlling and monitoring emerging zoonoses in the poultry farming and trading system in Bangladesh: an interplay between pathogens, people, policy’. In addition, he holds various other smaller grants totalling about about £500k.

Past funding: approximately £10.5Mill research funding as principal investigator  for various projects, including risk-based surveillance, biosecurity on beef cattle farms in the UK, development of HPAI H5N1 risk reduction strategies for Asian and African countries, MRSA in companion animals, African swine fever epidemiology in Europe and Africa, antibiotic usage in pig production, development of a global animal and production atlas and development of predictive spatial risk models for Rift-valley fever in Africa.

Projects

• BALZAC 

People: Dirk Pfeiffer, Guillaume Fournié, Natalie Moyen
Behavioural Adaptations in Live poultry trading and farming systems and Zoonose Control in Bangladesh

• China Field Epidemiology Training Programme for Veterinarians (FETPV)

 
People: Dirk Pfeiffer, Javier Guitian, Julian Drewe, Barbara Haesler, Timothée Vergne
China FETPV seeks to improve animal and public health using scientific and risk based approaches to the control of transboundary animal diseases and emerging infectious diseases.

Dirk teaches Epidemiology mainly at postgraduate level, including teaching of specialist courses at advanced level.

He has produced the following teaching videos:

Pfeiffer,D.U. (2015): Predictive value of a diagnostic test result. VET Talks video lecture. 

Pfeiffer,D.U. (2015): Diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. VET Talks video lecture.

One Health: An introduction by Professor Dirk Pfeiffer 

Outreach

Dirk has also designed and taught international training courses in veterinary epidemiology, risk analysis and spatial analysis in Austria, Australia, Canada, China, Croatia, Denmark, Ethiopia, Germany, Israel, New Zealand, Malawi, Mongolia, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, Vietnam and United Kingdom. He has coordinated a two year Field Epidemiology Training Programme for Veterinarians in China since 2011.