Sunetra Gupta (born 15 March 1965) is an Indian-born British infectious disease epidemiologist and a professor of theoretical epidemiology at the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford. She has performed research on the transmission dynamics of various infectious diseases, including malaria, influenza and COVID-19, and has received the Scientific Medal of the Zoological Society of London and the Rosalind Franklin Award of the Royal Society. She is a member of the scientific advisory board of Collateral Global, an organisation which examines the global impact of COVID-19 restrictions. Gupta is also a novelist and a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award. Early life and education Gupta was born in Calcutta, India, to Dhruba and Minati Gupta. She trained in biology, and was awarded a bachelor's degree from Princeton University. In 1992 she obtained her PhD from Imperial College London for a thesis on the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. Career and research Positions Gupta is a professor of theoretical epidemiology in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, where she leads a team of infectious disease epidemiologists. She has undertaken research on various infectious diseases, including malaria, HIV, influenza, bacterial meningitis and COVID-19. She is a supernumerary fellow of Merton College, Oxford. She also sits on the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press. In April 2021, she received a £90,000 donation from the Georg and Emily von Opel Foundation. In May 2022 she joined a partnership with Blue Water Vaccines, Inc. to apply her research to the development of a universal flu vaccine. Awards Gupta has been awarded the 2007 Scientific Medal by the Zoological Society of London and the 2009 Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award. In July 2013, Gupta's portrait was on display during the prestigious Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition along with leading female scientist such as Madame Curie. COVID-19 In March 2020, some modelling of the COVID-19 pandemic by Gupta and colleagues was released to the media. Their model suggested that up to 68% of the UK population could already have been infected, suggesting broader immunity and a subsiding threat. The findings differed greatly from the work of other experts and quickly came under criticism. In May that year, she told UnHerd that she believed "the epidemic has largely come and is on its way out in [the UK]. So, I think [the infection fatality rate] would be definitely less than one in a thousand,