Professor Dame Angela McLean DBE FRS HonFREng FMedSci

Angela McLean, who became the Government Chief Scientific Adviser in 2023, is an academic and policymaker who has played significant roles in epidemiology and healthcare. Throughout her career, she has provided critical advice to government departments, synthesising complex evidence for policy decision-making on issues such as infectious disease and the health effects of low-level ionising radiation.

After studying mathematics at the University of Oxford, she received her PhD from London University with a thesis on mathematical models of the epidemiology of measles in developing countries. Returning to Oxford as a Royal Society University Research Fellow, she was then seconded to the Pasteur Institute in Paris. From 1998 she led Mathematical Biology at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Institute for Animal Health

In 2000 she became a Professor of Mathematical Biology in Oxford, and the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak saw her serve as a committee member on the independent review carried out by the Royal Society which made recommendations about how to prevent and combat further highly infectious livestock diseases.

Government roles include as a member of the DEFRA Science Advisory Council and the Department of Health's National Expert Panel on New and Emerging Infections. In 2019 she was the first woman to be appointed Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence, attending SAGE meetings during the COVID pandemic, and co-chairing the sub-committee Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling.

Alongside her role as Government Chief Scientific Adviser, she also heads the Government Science and Engineering Profession, which brings together people from all walks of life and connects scientists and engineers from across the public sector to key decision-makers in government.

Her interest in the use of natural science evidence in formulating public policy saw her involved in synthesising scientific evidence on areas of policy concern or controversy for non-technical audiences, published by the Royal Society and the Oxford Martin School. Topics included the control of bovine tuberculosis and the health implications of ionising radiation.

Angela has received numerous accolades, including election as a Fellow of the Royal Society and recipient of their Gabor Medal for her work on the mathematical population biology of immunity. She was awarded the University of Oxford Weldon Prize 2018 and received her DBE the same year for Services to Mathematical Biology and to Scientific Advice for Government.

Of her appointment as an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Angela said: “It is a privilege. The Academy is an important voice of the UK medical research community that has advanced the fields of biomedicine and health to help meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. I am looking forward to joining this distinguished Fellowship.”