Modelling in practice: an institutional ethnography of infectious disease modelling

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the growth of epidemiological modelling's influence on social life and policy. Although there are studies that have documented how epidemiological modelling has accumulated its political capital and that have demonstrated the repercussions of the policies driven by the models, still little is known about how the models are produced in practice. This PhD project aims to fill in this gap with an ethnographic study of the practices of infectious disease modelling and the differences between these practices in different organizations. By conducting qualitative interviews with the modellers, engaging in participant observation in two prominent laboratories in the UK or abroad, and critically examining the models themselves, I hope to demonstrate the ethical repercussions of current modelling practices and outline the potential ways to improve them.