Dr Janey Messina

Associate Professor in Quantitative Social Science Methods

Academic Profile

Janey joined the School of Geography and the Environment in December 2016, with a joint appointment in the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies. She has a BA (Geography, 2005) from the University of California, Los Angeles, an MS (Geography, 2008) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a PhD (Geography, 2011) from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Her doctoral research focused on the geography and epidemiology of HIV, malaria, and anaemia in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At UNC, Janey was also a trainee at the Carolina Population Center, where she received formal training in demographic and epidemiological methods.

Janey has been at the University of Oxford since 2012, where she previously worked as a senior postdoctoral researcher with the Spatial Epidemiology and Ecology Group in the Department of Zoology. She coordinated the group's contribution to the International Research Consortium on Dengue Risk Assessment, Management and Surveillance, focusing her research on global patterns and drivers of dengue virus transmission, as well as potential changes in the landscape and epidemiology of the disease resulting from factors such as urbanisation, climate change and economic shifts. In addition to this primary research, Janey led or contributed to research projects relating to the geography of several other diseases, including Zika virus, Leishmaniasis, Plasmodium vivax malaria, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and Hepatitis C virus.

Current Research

Collaboration and communication with researchers in an array of external fields are central to Janey's research, which is highly interdisciplinary in nature. Her interests lie primarily in the following areas:

  • Health geography
  • Spatial epidemiology of infectious diseases
  • The application of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and quantitative analysis to public health and social science research questions
  • Population-environment interactions, particularly in developing countries

Teaching and Supervision

Janey's teaching focuses on social science research methods, teaching quantitative methods to students in both the School of Geography and the Environment and the School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies.

Current Graduate Research Students

Sabrina Li

Human-Environment Interactions on Infectious Disease Risk in Brazil

Recent Graduate Research Students (since 2006)

Anaïs Lemyre
Completed DPhil in 2023

The role of social and natural environments in health geography: A case for wellbeing and greenspace during the COVID-19 pandemic

Qiujie Shi
Completed DPhil in 2021

Beijing and London Compared: How Can Fast-Developing Cities Broaden Urban Knowledge?

Selected Publications

Research Clusters