I am a Professor at LSHTM, an Honorary Consultant in Medical Microbiology at the University College London Hospital and hold an appointment at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. I am based in Harare, Zimbabwe where I am deputy director of the Zim-LSHTM Research Partnership, a partnership between the LSHTM and the Biomedical Research and Training Institute (BRTI) in Harare, Zimbabwe.

My Phd (2008-2011), which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, focused on the role of active TB case finding and antiretroviral therapy for TB control in high HIV prevalence settings. From 2015-2018 I directed the National and WHO Supranational TB Reference Laboratory in Germany, Research Centre Borstel.

Together with Dr Norbert Heinrich I lead an EDCTP-funded TB household contact study (ERASE-TB) with the aim to evaluate new diagnostic tests and algorithms to diagnose TB before transmission occurs, earlier than current diagnostic approaches and to identify those most at risk for developing TB to allow targeted preventive treatment. I am chief scientist for an EDCTP-funded cluster randomised trial (TB-CAPT) led by the Foundation of Innovative Diagnostics (FIND) investigating the effect of near patient TB diagnostics (Omni Xpert/Ultra) on time to TB treatment initiation.  

I am involved in a number of studies investigating antimicrobial resistance in Africa. In collaboration with Dr Tom Darton at the University of Sheffield and Dr Justin Dixon we are investigating the effect of the 2019 conjugated typhoid vaccine campaign on antimicrobial prescribing in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In 2020 I contributed as a member of the guideline development group to the WHO guidelines on systematic TB screening and nucleic acid amplification tests for detection of TB and drug resistant TB.