Sir Roy is Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London and Director of the London Centre for Neglected Tropical Disease Research. His recent appointments include Rector of Imperial College London and Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Defence, UK. His research interests are in interdisciplinary studies at the interface between medicine, biology, mathematics and computation.
Sir Roy has also served as Director of the Wellcome Centre for Parasite Infections from 1989 to 1993 (at Imperial College London) and as Director of the Wellcome Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Disease from 1993 to 2000 (at the University of Oxford). He is the author of over 500 scientific articles and has sat on numerous government and international agency committees advising on public health and disease control including the World Health Organisation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and UNAIDS. From 1991-2000 he was a Governor of the Wellcome Trust.
He is a past Trustee of the Natural History Museum, Member of the Singapore National Research Foundation Fellowship Board, Member of the International Advisory Committee of Thailand National Science and Technology Development Agency and Member of the Malaysian Biotechnology Advisory Board. He was a non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline for over 10 years up to 2018, is currently Chairman of Oriole Globa Health Ltd and a member of the International Advisory Board of Hakluyt and Company Ltd.
Sir Roy was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1986, a Founding Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 1998, a Foreign Associate Member of the National Academy of Medicine at the US National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and a Foreign Member of the French Academy of Sciences in 2009. He was knighted in the 2006 Queen’s Birthday Honours.