Newcastle University

Research Interests

I am interested in ecological modelling in general, specifically simulation modelling of spatial systems and epidemiology

Current Work

I am currently researching the transmission of diseases in a small-world context. This type of model concentrates primarily on the heterogeneous nature of routes of transmission between individuals in a population, including in models real-world social features such as clustering (where some individuals are more tightly linked with each other than on average), long-distance linkage (where some clusters are connected to others by a low incidence of widely connected individuals) and highly-connected individuals (where members of the network are members of multiple clusters).

My current work also includes modelling aspects of wildlife biology such as competition between red and arctic foxes in Fenno-Scandia and the epidemiology of TB in badger populations in the UK.

Research Group: Centre for Life Sciences Modelling

Projects

• Declines and Conservation of Threatened Galliformes in the Himalayas
  Project Leader(s): Jonathon Dunn

Undergraduate Teaching

BIO2006 Entomology

• Mill AC, Rushton SP, Shirley MDF, Murray AWA, Smith GC, Delahay RJ, McDonald RA. Farm-scale risk factors for bovine tuberculosis incidence in cattle herds during the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. Epidemiology and Infection 2012, 140(2), 219-230.
• Chambers MA, Rogers F, Delahay RJ, Lesellier S, Ashford R, Dalley D, Gowtage S, Dave D, Palmer S, Brewer J, Crawshaw T, Clifton-Hadley R, Carter S, Cheeseman C, Hanks C, Murray A, Palphramand K, Pietravalle S, Smith GC, Tomlinson A, Walker NJ, Wilson GJ, Corner LAL, Rushton SP, Shirley MDF, Gettinby G, McDonald RA, Hewinson RG. Bacillus Calmette-Guerin vaccination reduces the severity and progression of tuberculosis in badgers. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 2011, 278(1713), 1913-1920.
• Vale L, Adamson A, Critchley J, Rushton S, Kelly S, Shen J, Shirley M, Mason H, Donaldson C, Armstrong N. Economic evaluation: evaluating the short-term impacts of the school food policy and experimental modelling of longer term impacts. London: Newcastle University and the University of Stirling as part of the Public Health Research Consortium, 2011. B5-07A.
• Thomas MF, Blain AP, Shirley MDF, Simmister C, Elemraid MA, Gorton R, Pearce MS, Clark JE, Rushton SP, Spencer DA. Geographical variation in the risk of childhood pneumonia and relationships to socio-economic and health deprivation. In: European Respiratory Society Annual Congress. 2011, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• Lurz PWW, Pless-Mulloli T, Rushton SP, Shirley MDF, Glinianaia SV, Rankin J, Pearce MS, Parker L. Air pollution exposure during pregnancy and infancy in an industrial city over 32 years: the UK PAMPER study. In: Vulnerability of the Fetus and Infant to ambient pollutants and reduced food intake in pregnancy. 2007, Krakow, Poland: Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego.
• Shirley MDF, Rushton SP. The impacts of network topology on disease spread. Ecological Complexity 2005, 2(3), 287-299.
• Shirley MDF, Rushton SP. Where diseases and networks collide: Lessons to be learnt from a study of the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease epidemic. Epidemiology and Infection 2005, 133(6), 1023-1032.
• Shirley MDF, Rushton SP, Smith G, South AB, Lurz PWW. Investigating the spatial dynamics of bovine tuberculosis in badger populations: Evaluating an individual-based simulation model. Ecological Modelling 2003, 167(1-2), 139-157.
• Lurz PWW, Shirley MDF, Rushton SP, Sanderson RA. Modelling the consequences of duck migration patterns on the genetic diversity of aquatic organisms: A first step towards a predictive tool for wetland management. Acta Oecologica 2002, 23(3), 205-212.
• Shirley MDF, Armitage VL, Barden TL, Gough MC, Lurz PWW, Oatway DE, South AB, Rushton SP. Assessing the impact of a music festival on the emergence behaviour of a breeding colony of Daubenton's bats (Myotis daubentonii). Journal of Zoology 2001, 254(3), 367-373.
• Shirley MDF, Sibly RM. Metapopulation dynamics of fruit flies undergoing evolutionary change in patchy environments. Ecology 2001, 82(11), 3257-3262.
• Shirley MDF, Rushton SP, Young AG, Port GR. Simulating the long-term dynamics of slug populations: A process-based modelling approach for pest control. Journal of Applied Ecology 2001, 38(2), 401-411.
• Macdonald DW, Tattersall FH, Johnson PJ, Carbone C, Reynolds JC, Langbein J, Rushton SP, Shirley MDF. Management and control of populations of foxes, deer, hares and mink in England and Wales, and the impact of hunting with dogs. London: Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs, Her Majesty's Government, 2000.
• Cloke D, Moore O, Shab T, Rushton S, Shirley MDF, Deehan DJ. Thigh Muscle Injuries in Youth Soccer Predictors of Recovery. American Journal of Sports Medicine 2012, 40(2), 433-439.
• Elemraid MA, Eastham KM, Rushton SP, Shirley MDF, Spencer DA, Thomas MF, Hampton F, Gorton R, Pollard K, Gennery AR, Clark JE. Impact of heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine on the incidence of childhood pneumonia seen in hospital in the North East of England. In: Thorax: Winter Meeting of the British Thoracic Society. 2011, Westminster: BMJ Group.
• Port GR, Shirley MDF, Collier RH, Bohan DA, Symondson WOC, Glen DM. An IPM strategy for slugs in vegetable and salad crops. In: The BCPC international congress : crop science & technology 2003. 2003, British Crop Protection Council.
• Shirley MDF, Sibly RM. Genetic basis of a between-environment trade-off involving resistance to cadmium in Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution 1999, 53(3), 826-836.