Research Interests
- Infectious Disease Epidemiology
- Surveillance
- Outbreak Research
- One Health
- Disease Modelling
- Implementation Research
- Big Data Analytics
Education
- Post Graduate Certificate Course in Infectious Disease Modelling, AIIMS Nagpur, 2025
- MD (Community Medicine), JIPMER, Puducherry – Gold Medalist, 2018
- MBBS, Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College, Salem, 2015
Overview
Dr Manikanda Nesan S is an infectious disease epidemiologist working at the interface of field epidemiology, quantitative modelling, and health systems research. His work focuses on strengthening surveillance systems, investigating outbreaks, drawing insights from large datasets and generating high-quality longitudinal data to support proactive public health decision-making.
He joined the Isaac Centre for Public Health, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, in October 2025 as an Assistant Professor. His current research aims to shift public health practice from reactive outbreak response to proactive outbreak science through cohort studies, integrated serosurveillance, and disease modelling.
Before joining IISc, he served for over six years as faculty for the Field Epidemiology Training Programs and the Master of Public Health program at the ICMR–National Institute of Epidemiology, Chennai, and the South Asia Field Epidemiology and Technology Network. During this period, he trained more than 100 field epidemiologists across multiple Indian states and mentored more than 25 public health officers and several postgraduate students in research design, disease surveillance, outbreak investigations, program evaluation, and epidemiological analysis.
He has led or contributed to more than 20 outbreak investigations, including high-profile investigations of norovirus and Zika virus outbreaks, and played a technical role in COVID-19 response and modelling at the state level. His work during the COVID-19 pandemic included surveillance analytics, modelling and forecasting support, and evaluation of vaccine effectiveness in community settings.
His broader research portfolio spans disease surveillance strengthening, implementation research within public health programs, infectious disease epidemiology, and large-scale secondary data analysis. His research has resulted in over 45 peer-reviewed publications in national and international journals and two book chapters.
At IISc, Dr Nesan is building a research program focused on longitudinal cohort platforms, integrated serosurveillance focusing on One Health, implementation research and quantitative modelling to address major infectious disease challenges in India.
Dr Nesan has over nine years of teaching experience across MBBS, MPH, and Field Epidemiology Training Programs. He teaches epidemiology, scientific communication, program evaluation, one health, data analysis using R and other statistical tools.
He welcomes motivated PhD students interested in infectious disease epidemiology, one health, surveillance analytics, modelling, implementation research, and data-intensive public health research.
Dr Nesan is interested in collaborating on longitudinal studies, integrated serosurveillance platforms, one health, surveillance system strengthening, disease modelling and forecasting, implementation research embedded within public health programs and big data analytics for health systems.
He is open to interdisciplinary collaborations across epidemiology, microbiology, data science, engineering, and policy research.