University of Cambridge · Mastercard Foundation Scholar

Gerald Munetsi

I am a

I am passionate about improving and protecting human health and livelihoods by combining deep learning with infectious-disease modelling and translating evidence into policy that reaches those who need it most.

Gerald Munetsi
MPhil Population Health Sciences · Cambridge
Gerald Munetsi at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge
Wolfson College · Cambridge

About

Where machine learning meets public health

Gerald Munetsi is a researcher working at the intersection of deep learning and infectious-disease modelling. He is a Mastercard Foundation Scholar and has completed an MPhil in Population Health Sciences at the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, having previously earned a first degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Zimbabwe.

He is currently an Assistant Research Fellow at the Centre for Epidemiology Modelling and Analysis (CEMA), where he contributes to the following projects: Dynamic Transmission Modelling for Schistosomiasis and Soil-Transmitted Helminths for the WHO Expanded Project for Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), and Mathematical Modelling to Establish the Transmission Dynamics and Burden of Visceral Leishmaniasis in Kenya and Ethiopia to Inform Targeted Control and Elimination Strategies (ENDVL Afrika).He is also currently implementing a Policy Fellowship awarded by the Africa Pandemic Sciences Collaborative, focusing on AI-enhanced One Health surveillance.

His research interests centre on:

  • Infectious-disease and NTD modelling using compartmental and agent-based models
  • Surrogate modelling and approximate Bayesian inference
  • Geostatistical modelling
  • Scalable and flexible methods for spatiotemporal statistics and Bayesian machine learning

Beyond his technical work, Gerald has collaborated with several NGOs across Zimbabwe, the UK, and South Africa. His experience includes leading youth development and outreach initiatives, writing grant proposals, and engaging stakeholders to support impactful social programmes.

0 Papers & conferences
0 Fellowships & awards
0 Learned societies
PythonPyTorchRBayesian Statistics Agent-Based ModellingGenomic EpidemiologyOperations Research

Notable Work

Papers, policy & recognition

Academic Papers & Conferences

  1. 2025–26

    Emulation strategies for epidemic agent-based models

    Making computationally expensive agent-based epidemic simulators fast enough to answer real-time policy questions.

  2. 2026

    HDR-UK Early Career Conference

    Health Data Research UK · United Kingdom.

    At Health Data Research UK
  3. 2026

    Neural Inference for Bayesian Phylodynamics & Genetic Epidemiology

    Deep-learning approaches to Bayesian inference over pathogen genomes · United Kingdom.

    At the Cambridge Health Futures Conference
  4. 2024

    Operations research techniques for the land allocation & transport problem in small-scale farming

    Applied optimisation for smallholder agriculture · Zimbabwe.

Policy & Advocacy

iPEP Fellowship · 2026–27

Working with policymakers from the Institute of National Planning, Egypt to generate evidence across the ministerial conditions and governance frameworks required to prototype an African-owned, AI-enhanced One Health surveillance system — enabling district officers to act on zoonotic spillover signals in real time.

At the Global Power Forum, Wolfson College Cambridge
iPEP Fellowship

Awards & Recognition

  • 2026

    Individual Policy-Exchange Programme (iPEP)

  • 2025

    Mastercard Foundation Scholarship

    University of Cambridge

  • 2024

    CreFund AI Fellowship

    United States

Affiliations

  • Royal Statistical Society (RSS)
  • Zimbabwe Infectious Disease Modelling Consortium
  • International Biometric Society (IBS)

Research & Code

Selected projects

A sample of open work — from epidemic emulators to genomic classifiers. Full source is on GitHub.

Jupyter · Python Epidemic modelling

Agent-Based Model Emulator

Surrogate models that emulate expensive stochastic epidemic ABMs, so inference and scenario analysis run in seconds rather than hours.

View on GitHub →
Python · PyTorch Bayesian deep learning

Neural Bayesian Phylodynamics

Simulation-based / neural inference for phylodynamic and genetic-epidemiology models, learning posteriors over pathogen transmission from genomic data.

View on GitHub →
Jupyter · Python Genomics

Pan-Cancer Classification

Multi-class classification of cancer type from high-dimensional genomic expression data using machine-learning pipelines.

View on GitHub →
R Health impact assessment

Diet & Health Policy Modelling

Comparative risk-assessment modelling of dietary policy scenarios and their projected population-health impact.

View on GitHub →
Optimisation · Python Operations research

Land Allocation & Transport

Linear/optimisation models to solve the land-allocation and transport problem for small-scale farming in Zimbabwe.

View on GitHub →

More on GitHub

Notebooks, experiments and research code across epidemiology, ML and statistics.

@GeraldMunetsi

Contact

Let’s build something that matters

Open to research collaborations, speaking, policy work and partnerships across AI, epidemiology and global health. The fastest way to reach me is email or LinkedIn.

At a glance

Based in
Cambridge, UK · Zimbabwe
Focus
Deep learning · Disease modelling
Currently
MPhil, University of Cambridge
Open to
Research · Policy · Speaking