Skip to main content
Research group

WorldPop

A resident of Ganvie stilt village in Benin navigates a boat through water

Regularly updating data on population numbers and characteristics to help with effective governance and efficient allocation of resources.

About

We work to ensure that everyone is mapped and counted in decision making. We develop geospatial integration methods to make detailed demographic datasets. Our work features in Nature, Science, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Our datasets are used by governments, international agencies, academia, NGOs and the private sector. We work closely with the United Nation agencies and national statistical offices in low and middle-income countries. Our approaches are designed to maximise uptake and impact, and to strengthen local capacity.

Our work focus areas for development and implementation cover population distributions, demographics and dynamics in resource-poor settings. Our geostatistical modelling integrates data from traditional sources including censuses, and satellite and cellphone datasets.

We produce high resolution maps of:

  • age/sex structures
  • births
  • poverty
  • access to services
  • vaccination coverage

We also develop modelling frameworks for subnational migration flows, urban change and disease spread.

WorldPop is made up of more than 30 members of staff, including demographers, geographers, ecologists, statisticians, epidemiologists and computer scientists.

Principal funders and collaborators include:

  • the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
  • UK Department for International Development
  • the World Bank

Research highlights

People, projects and publications

People

Dr Sarchil Qader PhD

Senior Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Dr Sarchil is a Senior Research Fellow within the WorldPop research group (https://www.worldpop.org) in close collaboration with multiple organizations across the world, whose activities combine research and enterprise. He designs innovative research ideas using big datasets such as remote sensing to improve traditional methods in the application of national population sampling frames for low- and middle-income countries and in agriculture. 

Accepting applications from PhD students

Email: s.qader@soton.ac.uk

Address: B39, West Highfield Campus, University Road, SO17 1BJ

Dr Shengjie Lai PhD

Principal Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Lai is interested in understanding the transmission dynamics and intervention effectiveness for infectious diseases; Quantifying seasonal human mobility, social connectivity and migration using novel data sources, e.g. mobile phone data; Investigating spatiotemporal interactions between human behaviour, environmental change and infectious disease dynamics.

Accepting applications from PhD students

Email: shengjie.lai@soton.ac.uk

Address: B39, West Highfield Campus, University Road, SO17 1BJ

Mrs Thea Woods

Enterprise Fellow/GIS Analyst

Research interests

  • geospatial analysis
  • migration mapping
  • human mobility

Email: dw@geodata.soton.ac.uk

Address: B44, West Highfield Campus, University Road, SO17 1BJ

Dr Winfred Dotse-Gborgbortsi

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Healthcare accessibility
  • Maternal health
  • Spatial inequalities in health

Mr Wole Ademola Adewole

Research interests

  • Population mapping
  • Settlement mapping & classification
  • Urban analytics

Email: wole.ademola@soton.ac.uk

Address: B44, West Highfield Campus, University Road, SO17 1BJ

WorldPop complements traditional population data sources with dynamic, high-resolution data from satellites, surveys and cellphones to map human population distributions at high resolution, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that everyone, everywhere is counted in decision making.
Personal Chair

Contact information

Contact information

Useful links

Back
to top