Mike Tildesley is now a professor in the Zeeman Institute for Systems Biology and Infectious Disease Epidemiology Research at the University of Warwick  - but he started out doing a PhD in astrophysics, which is far literally and mathematically from studying the spread of diseases. We talked to Mike in July 2021 about his unusual route into epidemiology, the work he's doing on the pandemic, and about the highs and lows of working on the mathematical frontline.

Mike is a member of the  JUNIPER modelling consortium, and a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Modelling group (SPI-M) that advises the government on the scientific aspects of the pandemic.  This is the second episode of our special podcast series On the mathematical frontline, where we talk to the mathematicians working on the COVID-19 pandemic. We explore the maths they do, how they go about it, and what impact their work on the pandemic has had on their lives.