Ben's current research focuses on healthy and sustainable diet choices. He uses statistical and computational modelling to untangle decisions and consequences within the food system. His work spans the food system. Using the analogy of industrial metabolism, Ben is developing a computer simulation to describe how subsidies align with food production in Scotland all the way from agricultural commodities to nutrients. He is also modelling consumption data to understand meal structures and the implications of replacing meat as people become more environmentally conscious about their diet.

Before joining The Rowett, Ben was a research fellow (contractor) at the Fogarty International Center (part of the NIH) in the US for 10 years, and was a consultant for other US institutes (Johns Hopkins, University of Virginia, Penn State). Ben was working on child growth and development in low- and middle-income settings, analysing longitudinal cohort data from an international consortium, MAL-ED. His recent research spans the aetiology and consequences of enteropathogen infection, biomarkers of environmental enteropathy, causes and recovery of growth deficits and patterns of cognitive development. Prior to this, he worked at SAC (now SRUC) modelling endemic livestock diseases. Ben trained as an ecologist and retains an interest in the factors that differentiate disease exposures and outcomes.

Ben's broader interests include understanding how research is turned into policy. As an example, with the Sabin Vaccine Institute, Ben looked at decision-support tools to better articulate the deliberative processes around vaccine introductions and use in low- and middle-income settings.

Research Interests:

My research interests focus on using empirical evidence to understand drivers and outcomes in public health. Key interests include:

• policy decision making and evidence to recommendation frameworks
• behaviours and diet choice
• healthy and sustainable food consumption and production
• land-use and trade-offs for food production
• determinants of infectious disease distributions
• impacts of infection, nutrition and nurturing care in child growth and development
• enteric enteropathy

 Activities

Member WHO Total Systems Effectiveness (TSE) modeling working group (2018-2019)

North of Scotland (2) Research Ethics Committee (Expert member, 2017-2022)

Supervision 

MSc students (three in 2023, one in 2024)

Teaching