Assistant Professor
Biography
Dr Esther van Kleef is a senior researcher at the University of Oxford. She works jointly between the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, and the Nuffield Department of Medicine, and holds a position as visiting Assistant Professor at University Medical Centre Utrecht. Before, she worked as a technical consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), where she spearheaded the analyses for the Global Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Report 2025.
Esther has developed expertise in quantitative epidemiology, including mathematical modelling and the analysis of surveillance data, complemented by fieldwork in both high-income and low- and middle-income settings. She has led interdisciplinary research across Europe and Africa to enhance infectious disease surveillance and response.
Her current research focuses on using modelling approaches to understand and quantify the role of key AMR drivers, the transmission of AMR bacteria between community and healthcare settings, and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. She has a particular interest in the use of sequencing data for infectious disease surveillance and infection prevention and control, as well as in understanding the role of the environment in the emergence and spread of AMR, including the effective implementation of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions, see e.g. EU-funded ALARUM and CABU-EICO.
Esther earned a PhD in Infectious Disease Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Before she was based at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp, and has held academic and public health roles at Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit, Public Health England (UKHSA), and the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment. She has also been involved in WHO’s emergency outbreak response efforts, including leading epidemiological and data analysis teams during the 2019–2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
