Dr. Cliff Kerr is a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Disease Modeling, part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he works on COVID, polio, and family planning. Previously, he completed a B.Sc. in neuroscience and a Ph.D. in physics, was a lecturer in scientific computing at the University of Sydney, co-founded two startups (on data analytics and health economics), worked on a DARPA project teaching robots to pick up balls, and developed an algorithm that composes music in real time based on brain activity recordings. He is passionate about architecture, cooking, and promoting equity in global health. He lives in New York.