Dr. Ana Karina Pitol Garcia earned her PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. Her doctoral research focused on the transmission of pathogens including rotavirus, coxsackievirus, adenovirus, and e coli – between humans and their environment. Following her PhD, she was awarded a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation to conduct research at Imperial College London, where she studied schistosomiasis transmission in endemic regions. She later joined Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) to further investigate the transfer of pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and the monkeypox virus between humans and their environment – using this knowledge to design and evaluate interventions aimed at reducing disease transmission. Dr. Pitol has secured 11 grants and fellowships as a principal investigator, totalling approximately £530,000 in funding. In addition to her research, Dr Pitol has more than five years of experience working on consultancy projects with government bodies and industry partners.

Dr. Pitol’s research interests focus on human pathogens, including viruses, bacteria, and parasites, with an emphasis on understanding their transmission through contaminated environments and human-to-human interactions. She is particularly interested in evaluating the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical interventions (e.g. disinfection, hygiene) to control disease spread. Her research also involves collecting and analysing behavioral and environmental contamination data to identify factors influencing infection risks, as well as applying the Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment framework to estimate infection risks and evaluate strategies for risk mitigation.

Dr Pitol is an Associate Fellow of Advance HE with over eight years of teaching experience at universities in Mexico, Switzerland, and the UK.