Professor Ian Cockburn is a malaria immunologist who has spent two decades studying how the immune system recognises and responds to Plasmodium falciparum. He joined LSHTM in 2026 as Professor of Immunology, moving from the Australian National University, where he was Professor of Immunology and Head of the Division of Immunology and Infectious Disease. The move to LSHTM reflects a choice to build closer collaborations and translational links with malaria-endemic regions, drawing on LSHTM's MRC research units in Uganda and The Gambia, and its insectary facilities supporting the full Plasmodium lifecycle. He welcomes contact from researchers and institutions working on malaria in endemic settings, as well as from individuals interested in pursuing PhD projects within his group.

Ian's key contributions include the discovery of genes associated with resistance to malaria (PNAS, 2004), determining how CD8⁺ T cells find and kill parasites in the liver (PNAS, 2013; Science Immunology, 2017), the first characterisation of a sporozoite-neutralising antibody, paving the way for monoclonal antibodies for malaria prophylaxis that are now in Phase II clinical trials (PLOS Pathogens, 2017), and more recently a series of papers examining how the immune system generates and regulates protective antibody responses (Immunity, 2024; Science Immunology, 2024).

Ian has secured over £7.5 million in competitive research funding as lead investigator from sources including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Australia's NHMRC and ARC, and most recently a Royal Society Wolfson Fellowship. He previously held an NHMRC Investigator (Leadership) Fellowship. He sits on the Editorial Board of npj Vaccines.

His training record includes 11 PhD students whose first-author work has appeared in Science Immunology, Immunity, Cell Host & Microbe and Nature Microbiology, among others.