Patty Kostkova

Patty launched the dPHE in November 2018 and looks forward to celebrating the 2nd anniversary of the award-winning Centre with her inaugural lecture, on 26th January 2021. Register to attend via the Inaugural Lecture Eventbrite page.

Before joining the Department for Risk and Disaster Reduction (RDR) in 2016, she was the Principal Research Associate in eHealth in Department of Computer Science (UCL), as well as setting up the UCL Festival for Digital Health and working on strategical developments for the digital health agenda across UCL with senior management.

Prior to joining UCL, she held a Research Scientist post at the ISI Foundation in Italy where she was appointed ISI Fellow for her research into digital epidemiology. She has extensive international experience at public health agencies such as WHO, ECDC, MSF, Foundation Merieux, and with industry. Until 2012, she was Reader and the Head of City eHealth Research Centre (CeRC) at City University, where she built up CeRC into a thriving multidisciplinary research centre collaborating with international partners and funding bodies including ECDC, WHO, HPA, EC and the DH.

Like most academics, her office days are less glamourous than it might look from outside – a combination of meetings, proposal and paper writing and responding to emails. One of the perks of academic life, she has taken full advantage of is the opportunity for travelling to international conferences, with project fieldwork proving invaluable opportunities for getting to know different cultures and societies from inside. Working with health agents controlling mosquitoes in Brazil, with female volunteers providing primary care education for rural women in Nepal, junior doctors managing TB in rural South Africa, and MSF and Red Crescent working in the West Bank in Palestine, have been perhaps the most enriching, rewarding and also humbling experiences of her career.

Asked about her feelings towards her department, she responded:

"UCL RDR is a truly interdisciplinary department – it’s amazing to work with so many colleagues from different backgrounds and disciplines. Such a creative environment doesn't only provide natural opportunities for mutual learning, it incites truly interdisciplinary research and teaching - the only approach to solve the global challenges of our society today. UCL as a university is also amazing in enabling cross-departmental interdisciplinary collaboration through programmes such as the Grand Challenges incentivising and celebrating academics moving from their silos to solving problems together."

In terms of future research, dPHE are planning to expand their research into early-warning and control of mosquito populations to combat Zika virus in Brazil across the tropical South and Central American countries, and to scale up their award-winning GADSA initiative changing prescription behaviour and compliance with antibiotic prescribing at the point of care in Nigeria across Africa and the UK. In 2021, they are eagerly looking forward to the results from the award-winning COVID-19 initiatives ‘My Activity Journal’ helping citizens to manage their time and improve wellbeing during lockdown, and results comparing livestyle changes between the 3 lockdowns from the ‘Zoom or Not to Zoom’ survey. Finally, they will combine the multilingual analysis of Twitter discourse around COVID-19 with other big data sources and leverage their early warning tools from Brazil to design a generalisable system for an early warning, rapid response, and risk communication to help with future pandemics.

Patty grew up in Prague, Czech Republic, and early mornings quiet walks across the 14th century iconic Charles Bridge to her undergraduate study at Charles University college under the Prague Castle will always remain among her most cherished memories. She also lived in Torino while working in ISI Fondation – like in Prague, she was inspired by the historical and musical tradition of Torino and made the most out of living in a vicinity of one of the best skiing and hiking resorts in the Alps. Throughout her research and gap years, she was also fortunate to spent long periods of time in the Middle East, Africa, Himalayas and South America. Despite this, she absolutely loved moving to London as an undergraduate student – “The cosmopolitan nature of the city makes London one of the most exciting, culturally enriching and professionally fulfilling cities in the world!”

Asked about her hobbies outside of work, Patty responded:

"One of my (perhaps unusual) hobbies is classical singing – I sing with the UCL Chamber Music choir and used to sing with the Philharmonia Chorus for years, enjoying performing under the world leading conductors and touring Italy, Turkey, and other countries. Musicians anywhere form an amazing community. While perhaps the highlights of my symphonic singing career were the Gala opening of the South Bank’s Royal Festival Hall after the refurbishment in 2007, and a live televised first night concert of the BBC PROMS, I’ve recently moved into opera and have been singing with the Midsummer Opera, Opera South – it might sound odd for a PhD computer scientist but I love opera for the unique combination of music, drama, acting, stage choreography and of course fancy costumes. Also, I love outdoors – skiing, hiking, trail running, and trekking are for me the best ways to relax after busy work schedule while enjoying amazing scenery. Quick access to high mountains is perhaps the only thing I’m missing in London, however, I do make up for it on holidays. Having said that – there is a silver lining! During the 2020 staycations in the UK, I fell in love with long-distance trails and beautiful coasts in Cornwall, Kent and Sussex!"

You can find out more about Patty from her IRIS profile on the UCL RDR page, or read about the recent awards won by dPHE via the MAPS website.