Rate My Professor Patricia Priest

Professor Patricia Priest holds the position of Professor in the Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Otago. She earned her MB ChB from the University of Otago, MPH with public health training in Auckland, and DPhil from the University of Oxford, where her doctoral research examined antibacterial use and resistance in the community. A Fellow of the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (FAFPHM), her research centers on infectious disease epidemiology, prevention and control, screening, and public health/epidemiology. She teaches introductory and advanced epidemiological methods as well as public health topics.

Priest's career includes serving as Head of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine from 2017 to 2020. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she acted as Chief Clinical Advisor for Epidemiology in the COVID Response Directorate in 2021, contributed to the Strategic COVID-19 Public Health Advisory Group from July 2021, and chaired the Epidemiology subgroup of the Ministry of Health Technical Advisory Committee for COVID-19. She has also been Acting Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Division of Health Sciences and serves as Epidemiological Advisor to the HIV Epidemiology Group. Key publications encompass 'COVID-19 in New Zealand and the impact of the national lockdown' (Jefferies et al., The Lancet Public Health, 2020), 'Sensitivity of Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction Testing for SARS-CoV-2 through Time' (Binny et al., Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2023), 'Risk Factors for Legionella longbeachae Legionnaires’ Disease’ (Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2017), 'Predicting the impact of household contact and mass chemoprophylaxis on future leprosy incidence' (Gilkison et al., PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2019), and 'Ethnic equity in Aotearoa New Zealand’s COVID-19 response' (Jefferies et al., Public Health, 2025). In 2010, she co-received the Ig Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating that wearing socks over shoes on icy footpaths reduces perceived slipperiness. Her contributions have influenced national infectious disease policy and response strategies.