Dr Marc-Alain Widdowson graduated from the University of Cambridge in Biological Anthropology and Veterinary Medicine and completed a MSc in Communicable Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. After working 3 years in Zimbabwe and Bolivia on wildlife, domestic and zoonotic infections, Dr Widdowson joined the National Institute for Public health (RIVM) for two years as a fellow of the European Program for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET). In 2001, Dr Widdowson joined the United States Centers for Disease Prevention (CDC) with focus on epidemiology of epidemic viruses throughout the world, first rotavirus and norovirus, and then he led efforts to understand the epidemiology and prevention of seasonal and pandemic influenza worldwide. Following a year as Principal Investigator of an Ebola vaccine trial in Sierra Leone, in 2015, Dr Widdowson was appointed as Director of the Division of Global Health Protection, CDC-Kenya a wide-ranging portfolio of public health science, workforce development, immunization, laboratory science and One Health.

In August 2019, Dr Widdowson was appointed as Director of the Institute of Tropical Medicine, Antwerp.

Dr Widdowson’s research interests lie primarily in the epidemiology of vaccine-preventable and epidemic viruses and he has authored or co-authored over 250 peer-reviewed articles and 9 book chapters in this and related fields.