He completed his Ph.D. at Imperial College London, where he used theoretical models and data analyses to study the effects of changes in different statistical descriptions of the environment, as well as the impact of environmental “spectral colour”, on animal population dynamics. He then joined the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, a UK executive agency, to work on fisheries-related questions. Prior to joining the University of Florida, he returned to Imperial College London to contribute to a project linking temperature dependence of individual-level metabolism and physiology with population-level responses, with a particular focus on phytoplankton.

Dr. Ko coordinates a research program in Brazil, which focuses on delineating the role of social marginalization, urban ecology and climate in the emergence of infectious disease threats in informal settlements and implementing community-based interventions in these settings. He and his team have also mobilized research capacity to respond to multiple epidemics, which include meningitis, leptospirosis, dengue, Zika virus infection and associated birth defects, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Ko is Program Director of the Fogarty/NIH Global Health Equity Scholars Program which provides training opportunities at 24 collaborating international sites. He is a member of the WHO R&D Taskforce for Zika Virus and R&D Blueprint Working Group. During the pandemic, he served as co-chair of Governor Lamont’s Reopen Connecticut Advisory Group. Dr. Ko continues to advise the Governor and the State of Connecticut on its pandemic prevention and control plan, as well as supporting the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in its COVID-19 response in Brazil.

In particular, this involves working with genetic, antigenic, and epidemiological data alongside information on how populations behave, interact with their environment. He has an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University, a Master’s degree in Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a PhD in Epidemiology, also from Johns Hopkins.