Dr João Romero

Dr João Romero

João is an experienced veterinary epidemiologist who has advanced modelling skills and strong international experience. 

João completed his veterinary studies in Portugal then undertook his PhD research in Canada where he worked in creating simulation models to inform disease management in Canadian salmon aquaculture. João has become a talented disease modeller.

João has worked as a private consulting epidemiologist and has lectured in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Public Health and Aquaculture amongst other subjects.  He has worked and trained in Portugal, Canada, Denmark and in the US and has been awarded a number of fellowships, scholarships and bursaries.João joined Ausvet Europe in mid-2024 and is now based in Lyon, France.  

João is a native Portuguese language speaker and speaks some Spanish and French.  He has worked or studied for several years in a purely English language workplace, as well as publishing reports and journal articles in English. He is an impeccable communicator.

João has a number of creative outlets and an eclectic array of interests.

Specialty areas

  • Veterinary Epidemiology
  • Aquatic animal health
  • Epidemiological analyses and computer programming, using a variety of software tools (e.g., Microsoft Excel, R, R Shiny, GIT, Stata®, QGIS)
  • Management and analyses of animal health data, performance evaluation of animal health programs and development of decision support tools
  • Project management, teamwork and report writing
  • Scientific communication: peer-reviewed publications, presentations at international conferences, lectures and training coordination.

Publications

Click here to see a full list of publications
Sajid, Z., Gamperl, A. K., Parrish, C. C., Colombo, S. M., Santander, J., Mather, C., Neis, B., Holmen, I. M., Filgueira, R., McKenzie, C. H., Cavalli, L. S., Jeebhay, M., Gao, W., López Gómez, M. A., Ochs, C., Lehnert, S., Couturier, C., Knott, C., Romero, J. F., … Singh, G. G. (2024). An aquaculture risk model to understand the causes and consequences of Atlantic Salmon mass mortality events: A review. Reviews in Aquaculture, 16(4), 1674–1695. https://doi.org/10.1111/raq.12917
Romero, J. F., Gardner, I. A., Saksida, S., McKenzie, P., Garver, K., Price, D., & Thakur, K. (2022). Simulated waterborne transmission of infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus among farmed salmon populations in British Columbia, Canada following a hypothetical virus incursion. Aquaculture, 548, 737658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2021.737658
Romero, J. F., Gardner, I., Price, D., Halasa, T., & Thakur, K. (2022). DTU‐DADS‐Aqua: A simulation framework for modelling waterborne spread of highly infectious pathogens in marine aquaculture. Transboundary and Emerging Diseases, 69(4), 2029–2044. https://doi.org/10.1111/tbed.14195
Romero, J. F., Gardner, I. A., Hammell, L., Groman, D., Whelan, D., O’Brien, N., Hawkins, L. J., Burnley, H., & Thakur, K. (2022). Descriptive epidemiology of variants of infectious salmon anaemia virus in four Atlantic salmon farms in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Journal of Fish Diseases, 45(6), 919–930. https://doi.org/10.1111/jfd.13617
Romero, J. F. (2022). Applications of simulation modelling to inform viral disease management in Canadian salmon aquaculture. https://www.islandscholar.ca/islandora/object/ir:24801
Romero, J. F. P. S. (2018). Implementação do plano de erradicação da brucelose dos pequenos ruminantes na divisão de alimentação e veterinária de Vila Real [MasterThesis, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Medicina Veterinária]. https://www.repository.utl.pt/handle/10400.5/15891