Mrs Julie Watson
BSc MSc
Research Fellow
Affiliations
Teaching
I am currently a tutor and examiner on the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene distance learning MSc module as well as an examiner on the Tropical Environmental Health MSc module.
Research
My research focuses on the epidemiology of disease related to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and the design and evaluation of WASH interventions to control these diseases.
Currently, I am based in Kenya as Visiting Scientist at the International Institute of Livestock Research. Here I coordinate a multi-country study of foodborne disease among children from low-income urban areas of Nairobi, Kenya and Maputo, Mozambique and the development of a comprehensive intervention to address this disease burden. Prior to this, I led the design and evaluation of a novel handwashing intervention - Surprise Soaps - for children in humanitarian camps in Myanmar and Northern Iraq, an intervention we are now testing on a larger scale in Somalia and Sudan.
I also support the design of research tools for a number of other WASH projects and I am particularly interested in mechanisms of health-related behaviour change among children, a topic which forms part of my ongoing PhD work.