Recent Activities

• 23 May 2026 I completed a clinical elective in Dermatology at National University Hospital (NUH), Singapore, alongside a two-month academic visit at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore, where I continued mpox modelling research and presented at the CERM research round. Blog post
• 6 Apr 2026 Our co-first-authored paper on the roles of community and sexual contacts in clade I mpox transmission is published in Nature Health. Publication link Blog post
• 21 Jul 2025 Our letter to the editor is published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Publication link
• 10 Jul 2025 Our new project on simulating the international spread patterns of clade IIb mpox in Asia is now published in Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Publication link
• 9 Jul 2025 We updated our preprint discussing roles of sexual transmission and community contact routes on the mpox clade Ib outbreak since 2024. Preprint link
• 5-8 Nov 2024 I participated in Infectious Disease Modelling conference 2024 held in Bangkok, Thailand. It was a great honour to present our latest mpox work at Early Career Researcher session (oral). My slides and some other details are available from here.
• 16 Oct 2024 Our new preprint is now out! This study disentangled the nuanced roles of community and sexual contacts on the clade I mpox transmission dynamics in DRC and other countries. Preprint link
• 28 Aug 2024 Our paper on the global landscape of mpox clade IIb is now published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Publication link
• 30 Jul 2024 Redesigned the website, including its overall layout and design elements.
• 9 Apr 2024 I am joining the team of Asst. Prof. Robbie Parks (Environmental Health Sciences) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, working on Bayesian modelling of the effects of tropical cyclones on health outcomes.
• 1 Apr 2024 My appointment as a national COVID-19 taskforce member for the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has been terminated as of 1 April.
• 7 Jan 2024 Our paper published in Epidemics has become the most downloaded article, having garnered interest from many readers. Publication link
• 28 Dec 2023 A new paper (preprint) is out on medRxiv. Preprint link
• 31 Oct 2023 Our paper on estimating waning vaccine effectiveness without relying on fine-scale data is published in Epidemics (first authored). Publication link
• 8 Oct 2023 Our study on global transmission dynamics of mpox is out on medRxiv. I contributed to this study as the second author. Preprint link
• 4 Aug 2023 Had a research meeting in Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University (other attendees: Akira Endo, Alexis Robert, Sung-mok Jung, Fuminari Miura, Arata Hidano, Toshiaki Asakura).
• 31 Jul 2023 Participated as a teaching assistant in the short course “Introduction to Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Modelling” at the School of Tropical Medicine and Global Health, Nagasaki University, Japan (24/07-31/07).
• 17 Jun 2023 Our paper on mpox spread has been accepted by The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Publication link
• 9 May 2023 Participated in a research consortium meeting in Brussels, 6-9 May 2023 (other attendees: Akira Endo, Sung-mok Jung, Fuminari Miura, Miina Yanagihara, Toshiaki Asakura).
• 25 Apr 2023 I was featured in a Japanese magazine titled “Japanese Scientists in Science 2022”. Media PDF
• 16 Nov 2022 A new paper (preprint) is out on medRxiv. I led this study as the first author: Preprint link This is a follow-up study of our earlier work on mpox epidemiology (Endo et al. 2022. Science) that looks at why cases are now declining in many affected areas. In a nutshell, we suggested that the accumulation of infection-derived immunity in heavy-tailed sexual contact networks can explain the apparent slowdown in the growth of cases.
• 24 Sep 2022 Listed as one of the contributors to the UKHSA-JUNIPER MPX Network Modelling Seminar, where my leading research and its findings were introduced: Acknowledgements link
• 22 Sep 2022 A second-author paper is now out in Science as a first release: Publication link We suggested that the rapid growth of the current monkeypox outbreak is likely driven by a small fraction of men who have sex with men and have many sexual partners.