Biography
J. Russell Stothard is Professor in the Department of Tropical Disease Biology at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM), United Kingdom. He holds a BSc, MSc, DIC and PhD, and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA).
Professor Stothard's research focuses on the biology and control of neglected tropical diseases, particularly schistosomiasis and other snail-borne infections. His work combines molecular diagnostics, medical malacology and field epidemiology, and he has undertaken extensive fieldwork across sub-Saharan Africa, including in Cameroon, supporting disease mapping, surveillance and control programmes in partnership with African institutions and ministries of health. He has published extensively on the molecular epidemiology of schistosome parasites and their intermediate snail hosts, and on practical approaches to disease surveillance in low-resource settings. Alongside his research he teaches and supervises postgraduate students in tropical disease biology. He accepted the distinction of Fellow of the Liberia Academy of Sciences in August 2026.
His expertise is particularly relevant to Liberia's priorities in the control of neglected tropical diseases, the strengthening of laboratory diagnostic capacity and the development of field research skills within the national health system.