David Hayman

David Hayman is a New Zealand-based epizootic epidemiologist and disease ecologist whose general multi-disciplinary work focuses on the maintenance of infectious diseases within their hosts and the process of emergence and transmission to humans specifically related to bats. He has gathered data on the relationship between ecological degradation due to anthropogenic actions, and increased pathogen emergence in humans and animals. During COVID-19 he was involved as an expert in several international collaborations, some convened by the World Health Organization, and was a regular commentator in the New Zealand media about the country's response to the pandemic. He has had lead roles in research organisations at Massey University and Te Pūnaha Matatini and was the recipient of the 2017 Rutherford Discovery Fellowship Award. Since 2014 Hayman has been a professor at Massey University. Education and career Hayman began studying Veterinary Medicine and Surgery at the University of Edinburgh in 1996 and graduated with a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine and Surgery in 2002. He gained an MSc in Conservation Biology at the University of Kent in 2005, completed a Doctor of Philosophy in Veterinary Science at the University of Cambridge in 2011 and postdoctoral training in infectious disease biology at Colorado University. After qualifying as a veterinary surgeon in 2002, Hayman mixed general veterinary practice in the UK with wildlife work, largely in the tropics. Since 2014, he has been a professor of Infectious Disease ecology at Massey University New Zealand, where he co-directs a large research team, the Molecular Epidemiology and Public Health Laboratory (mEpiLab) which is part of a World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Collaborating Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Public Health. He is the Director of the Infectious Disease Research Centre (IDREC) and a Principal Investigator at Te Pūnaha Matatini. Selected research