Our Team

Shazia Ruybal-Pesántez is a Junior Research Leader at ISGlobal, Barcelona, funded by a Fundación “la Caixa” Junior Leader Fellowship. She is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) and a Visiting Researcher at the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, School of Public Health, Imperial College London (UK).

She leads a multidisciplinary research program integrating genomic and computational epidemiology, modelling, outbreak analytics, and molecular surveillance to strengthen evidence-based public health responses. Her work combines expertise in bioinformatics, population genetics, computational epidemiology and modelling to develop analytical and statistical methods to better understand infection and transmission dynamics of vector-borne pathogens, with a particular focus on malaria and emerging interest in arboviruses. 

The broader aim of her research is to bridge the gap between data generation, analytical methods, and real-world public health impact. Through collaborative partnerships and capacity strengthening, she works to accelerate the integration of molecular (genomics, serology), epidemiological, and modelling approaches into programmatic decision-making. Her current projects involve close collaboration with partners in malaria-endemic settings experiencing outbreaks and resurgence, leveraging genetic data to better understand transmission dynamics and guide operational decision-making. 

A key component of her research program is the development of open-source community resources, digital tools, analytical pipelines, and software to support malaria molecular surveillance and genomic epidemiology. She is an active member of key international consortia including the Plasmodium Genomic Epidemiology Network (PlasmoGenEpi), the Applied Malaria Modeling Network (AMMnet) and is a co-lead of the Infectious Disease Modelling and Analytics for Pandemic Preparedness in Latin America (IDMAPP-LATAM) consortium.