SAGE Advisor: Prof Cath Noakes
As a leading expert on the spread and transmission of Covid-19, Prof Cath Noakes OBE has the attention of the highest level of UK government. In April 2020, Covid-19 had not long pushed the UK into full lockdown when Cath received an email. “It came out of the blue and it was a little unnerving,” she said. The email, from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), requested her expertise on disease transmission to aid NHS and UK government decision-makers during the pandemic.
“While all these people were making sourdough bread, I didn’t have time to bake anything,” she joked. Instead, Cath gathered papers about transmission of the virus and started forming and leading the Environmental Modelling Group (EMG) – a sub-group of SAGE comprising engineers, architects, clinicians, modellers, microbiologists, behavioural scientists and public health specialists.
Cath was recruited by SAGE for her expertise in using physics and computer simulations to model how pathogens spread in buildings. As Professor of Environmental Engineering for Buildings in the School of Civil Engineering and Deputy Director of the Leeds Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Cath’s research includes investigating how touching contaminated surfaces can spread infections and how airborne diseases can be curtailed using air flow and ventilation.
“Until the start of the pandemic it was quite a niche area with a lot more focus on the energy consumption of a building,” she explained. “There’s nothing like going from obscurity to one of the most important topics there is.”
Central to her work is fluid dynamics – essentially how fluids such as liquids and air move. “How an aerosol is created in the respiratory system, what happens when someone breathes out, where the aerosol goes, how ventilation carries it to be inhaled by somebody else – that’s all fluid dynamics,” said Cath.
Along with other research, Cath leads a project called Hospital Environment Control, Optimisation and Infection Risk Assessment (HECOIRA), which is developing computational models to predict Covid-19 transmission in healthcare settings. Meanwhile, last July, she joined 35 international collaborators to pen an open letter, signed by 239 scientists worldwide, which urged decision-makers to recognise the potential for the airborne spread of Covid-19.