
Rômulo Neris

Dr Will Budd

Wasim Syed

Jeanine du Plessis

Dr Asher Williams

Dr Punam Krishan

Dr Natalia Pasternak

Dr Meenal Viz & Dr Nishant Joshi

Björn Meyer

Juan Ambrosioni

Gabriel Carrasco

Dr Vicky Baillie

Dr Simone Richardson

Professor Galit Alter

Daniela Ferreira

Federica Cappuccini

Andrea Mazzella

Purvi Parikh

Dr Alex Bowmer

Sean Elias

Nathan Peiffer Smadja

Dr Jamie Parker

Dr Nighat Arif

Professor Shiv Pillai

Julio Sempere

Dr Gustavo Cabral

Dineo Thaele & Matshidiso Sello

Jaqueline Goes de Jesus

Dr Soha Albayat

Dr Anna Blakney

Leonie Mayer

Dr Sarah Merrifield

Natali Serafin

Dr Paul Ian Cross

Dr Ahmad Abou Tayoun

Dr Walid Zaher

Dr Kiran Morjaria

Samantha Vanderslott

André Báfica

Dr Ajay M Verma

Faith Uwadiae

Dr Paul F. McKay

Dr Ruby Raphael

Shamaila Anwar

Dr Partha Kar
Featured Guides
These volunteers are making short videos on TikTok and Instagram to explain their part in the vaccine effort.

@nathanpsmad
Nathan Peiffer Smadja
Nathan Peiffer-Smadja is a physician specialised in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, a fellow of the French Society of Infectious Diseases, a PhD candidate in Public Health and a Honorary Clinical Research Fellow at Imperial College London. He is currently living in France and has worked on the Covid-19 Vaccine for over 6 months.

@gustavocienciacabral
Dr Gustavo Cabral
Gustavo leads the team that is developing a Brazilian vaccine for Covid-19 at the University of Sao Paulo. His work also focuses on vaccines for the Chikungunya and Zika viruses. His research centres on the use of “virus-like particles”, which was the focus of his postdoctoral studies at the universities of Oxford in the UK and Bern in Switzerland.

@thecovidexperience
Natali Serafin
Natali Serafin a research scientist working at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Analytics (VIDA) research unit in South Africa. Natali’s expertise includes project management, epidemiology, and clinical medicine. She is currently managing a sentinel Covid-19 surveillance taking place at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.

@my_lil_happinness
Dr Ruby Raphael
Dr Ruby Raphael is a Senior Doctorate of Medicine Resident at the Department of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, India. She is a part of Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences vaccine trial team currently running phase 1, 2 & 3 clinical trials for development of COVID-19 vaccine. This study will contribute to the understanding of safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

@drmeenalviz
Dr Meenal Viz & Dr Nishant Joshi
Dr Meenal Viz, Dr Nishant Joshi and baby Radhika are the Joshi trio who have been campaigning for healthcare workers throughout the pandemic. Last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, Dr Meenal Viz was the pregnant protester outside Downing Street when Radhika was a foetus. The protest gained worldwide media attention and now Meenal and Nishant hope to use their platform to spread positivity, hope, and help clear any misunderstandings around the vaccine. Changing the world one TikTok at a time!
Nishant works in General Practice and has played a big role in working with local communities to start important dialogue around the vaccines. He has seen the impact of the virus on ethnic minority groups and has been working closely with community leaders to share informed messages around the vaccine. Meenal has been working from home with Radhika, focusing on campaigns to help inform women who are either pregnant, planning to be pregnant, or breastfeeding to make informed choices around the vaccine.
Outside of work, Nishant is a bassist and writes songs about social injustice with his band, The Palpitations (and Baby Radhika is Nishant’s biggest fan). While Meenal has her own podcast, ‘Meenal’s World’, where she interviews trailblazers every week and hopes to educate and empower women across the world.

@oxdocelias
Sean Elias
Sean Elias is working as part of the Covid-19 vaccine trial team both in the lab and as part of the SciComms team at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford.
Sean is a postdoctoral immunologist and ‘Public Engagement with Research’ (PER) leader based. He has a keen interest in the human immune system with previous work on T cells, B cells and antibodies for various diseases including Malaria, Ebolavirus, Salmonella and now Covid-19. On the SciComms front, Sean has a keen interest in developing educational materials for schools and the general public, in particular through the medium of board games. During the pandemic he has also provided photos, videos, explainers and most recently GIFS to the world’s media on behalf of the Covid-19 vaccine research team.
When not in the lab Sean is a keen triathlete, cricketer & football player, avid board gamer and lover of ALL things Star Wars.

@dr.vanderslott
Samantha Vanderslott
Samantha Vanderslott is interested in public attitudes to vaccination, for routine vaccines and during outbreaks, as well as vaccine policies, in how these differ across countries and time. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began she has been researching views about potential vaccines and the increase in misinformation and disinformation.
Samantha is a health sociologist based in the Oxford Vaccine Group, at the University of Oxford, UK. She has worked there for the past four years following her PhD in Science and Technology Studies at University College London. Her research mainly uses qualitative methods and concentrates on health, society, and policy topics.

@drsars_cov_2
Dr Vicky Baillie
Vicky is a senior researcher at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Analytics (VIDA) research unit in South Africa. Vicky has extensive laboratory experience in both microbiology and molecular biology and is currently one of the lead scientists on the Oxford-AstraZenica vaccine trial in South Africa. She is also the scientist overseeing several Covid-19 surveillance trials taking place at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Soweto.
Community
Follow the people working on all aspects of science that will make these coronavirus vaccines safe and effective

@microelisa
Elisa Ramos Sevillano

@Kazatchkine
Michel Kazatchkine

@paolo_bonanni
Paolo Bonanni

@mishra_gayatree
Gayatree Mishra

@marykesteffens
Mary Kesteffens

@MarietFeltkamp
Mariet Feltkamp

@ShabirMadh
Shabir Madhi

@otavio_ranzani
Otavio Ranzani

@VirusesImmunity
Prof. Akiko Iwasaki

@Arindam4World
Arindam Ray

@VenkataraoDr
Dr E Venkata Rao

@ombaggio
Ombretta Baggio

@vaccine_trust
The Vaccine Confidence Project

@EdBelongia
Ed Belongia MD

@RebeccaChandle1
Rebecca Chandler

@GKangInd
Gagandeep Kang

@MSabahelzain
Majdi Sabahelzain

@DubeEve
Eve Dubé

@healthyalgo
Abraham Flaxman

@SaadOmer3
Saad B. Omer

You can help too
Thousands of volunteers around the world are signing up to help trial these vaccines to make sure they’re safe and effective.
Find a trial near you
About
Team Halo is an effort to support and celebrate the inspiring collaboration between scientists all over the world to help us end this pandemic with safe and effective vaccines.
The ‘halo’ represents the ring of connected science that circles the globe.
All participation is voluntary. If you’re involved in the vaccine search and would like to be listed on this site, please get in touch.
Team Halo was established in partnership with the The Vaccine Confidence Project at the University of London’s school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It is proud to collaborate with the UN Verified Initiative and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Support is provided by Luminate, IKEA Foundation and the Global Challenges Foundation.