Dr. Madeleine Thomson has built an extensive international research network that spans continents and disciplines, creating collaborative platforms for addressing climate health challenges through coordinated global action. Her approach to international collaboration represents a model for how complex, transboundary health challenges require coordinated responses that transcend traditional institutional and geographic boundaries.

Thomson’s collaborative network began during her tenure at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society, where she served as Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre on Malaria Early Warning Systems and Other Climate Sensitive Diseases. This role positioned her at the intersection of international health organizations, academic institutions, and national health systems worldwide.

Through her work at the WHO Collaborating Centre, Thomson established partnerships with health ministries, research institutions, and international organizations across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These collaborations focused on developing and implementing early warning systems for climate-sensitive diseases, requiring close coordination between climate scientists, epidemiologists, and public health practitioners.

Thomson’s collaborative approach emphasizes the critical importance of bringing together expertise from multiple disciplines to address climate health challenges effectively. Her network includes partnerships between climatologists, entomologists, epidemiologists, public health practitioners, and social scientists, recognizing that climate health challenges require interdisciplinary solutions.

One of Thomson’s most significant collaborative initiatives is her current leadership of Wellcome’s climate health research program, which funds 24 research teams from both climate and health backgrounds across 12 countries. This initiative represents a major investment in international collaboration, bringing together diverse expertise to develop new digital tools for responding to climate-sensitive disease threats.

Thomson’s international network includes partnerships with institutions across continents, from research teams in Vietnam developing the E-DENGUE early warning system to collaborations with African institutions working on malaria prediction systems. These partnerships demonstrate her commitment to supporting research capacity in regions where climate health impacts are most severe.

Her collaborative approach particularly emphasizes South-South collaboration, supporting partnerships between researchers and institutions in low- and middle-income countries facing similar climate health challenges. This approach recognizes that solutions developed in one region may be highly relevant and adaptable to other regions with similar environmental and social conditions.

Thomson’s network includes partnerships with major international organizations including the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and various United Nations agencies. These institutional partnerships enable her work to influence global health policy and contribute to international frameworks for addressing climate health challenges.

Through her role as a founding member of the Meningitis Environmental Risk Information Technologies (MERIT) research consortium, Thomson has demonstrated her ability to create lasting collaborative structures that bring together multiple institutions around specific health challenges. MERIT represents a model for how sustained collaboration can address complex climate-health relationships.

Thomson’s collaborative network extends to policy and advocacy organizations, including her role as Vice-President of the Health and Climate Foundation. This involvement demonstrates her commitment to ensuring that research findings are translated into policy recommendations and practical interventions.

Her international collaborations also include academic partnerships, exemplified by her role as Visiting Professor at Lancaster University Medical School. These academic affiliations enable her to contribute to training the next generation of climate health researchers while maintaining connections to cutting-edge research developments.

Thomson’s collaborative approach emphasizes capacity building and knowledge transfer, ensuring that international partnerships contribute to strengthening research and response capabilities in all participating countries rather than simply extracting knowledge from low-resource settings.

Through her extensive international network, Thomson has created platforms for sharing best practices, coordinating research priorities, and developing collaborative responses to emerging climate health threats that transcend national boundaries.

Her collaborative research model demonstrates how effective responses to global climate health challenges require sustained partnerships that combine scientific excellence with practical implementation focus and genuine commitment to addressing health equity.

Connect with Dr. Thomson’s international research network through https://wellcome.org/about-us/our-people/staff/madeleine-thomson, https://iri.columbia.edu/tags/madeleine-thomson/, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Madeleine_Thomson/3, https://uk.linkedin.com/in/madeleine-thomson-04297825, and https://vacsafe.columbia.edu/people/madeleine-thomson.