Catherine Ludden PhD

Dr. Catherine Ludden is a genomic epidemiologist and is currently on secondment at the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK) where she is Director of Operations. She is responsible for overseeing COG-UK operations, developing long-term operational strategies, coordinating public health investigations, and engaging with technical experts, collaborators, and senior leaders. Catherine also holds the position of Head of Operations for the Pathogen Genomics COVID Programme at Public Health England (PHE) and is responsible for the service delivery of SARS-CoV-2 genomics in the UK and the continuous genomic service improvement. Catherine has strong expertise in pathogen genomics, antibiotic resistance, and clinical microbiology. Prior to joining COG-UK and PHE, Catherine was working with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control where she provided scientific and technical expertise for the analysis and interpretation of European whole genome sequencing datasets and supported international outbreak investigations. She is a One Heath expert and holds a Sir Henry Postdoctoral Wellcome Fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to define reservoirs and transmission of antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli using a One Health approach.