Christina Pagel facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Christina Pagel
Pagel in 2016
Born	London, England
Citizenship	United Kingdom, Germany
Education	St Paul's Girls' School
Alma mater	The Queen's College, Oxford King's College London Birkbeck College, University of London Imperial College London
Occupation	Professor of operational research
Scientific career
Institutions	University College London
Thesis	Analysis of turbulent intermittency in the heliospheric magnetic field using Ulysses data (2002)

Christina Pagel is a German-British mathematician. She is a professor of operational research at University College London (UCL). Her work involves using math, data, and computer models to solve problems in healthcare.

Professor Pagel was the Director of UCL's Clinical Operational Research Unit (CORU) from 2017 to 2022. She is also a Vice President of the UK Operational Research Society. She helps lead a research group called CHIMERA at UCL, which studies data from very sick hospital patients.

Early Life and Education

Christina Pagel studied mathematics at The Queen's College, Oxford, and earned her degree in 1996. She also has master's degrees in Mathematical Physics from King's College London, and in Classical Civilisation, Medieval History, and Applied Statistics from Birkbeck College.

In 2002, she completed her PhD in Space Physics at Imperial College London. Her research focused on how turbulence behaves in the magnetic field between planets.

How Christina Pagel Uses Research to Help Healthcare

Christina Pagel started her career in Boston, USA. She studied how tiny particles called electrons move in space. She used data from a special spacecraft called ACE.

In 2005, she moved back to London. She joined the UCL Clinical Operational Research Unit. Here, she started using her math skills to solve problems in healthcare.

Improving Hospital Care with Data

In 2016, Professor Pagel received a special award called the Harkness Fellowship. This allowed her to spend a year in the USA. She researched how politicians think about national health policy. She also looked at how computer systems can help doctors make better decisions in hospitals.

Since 2017, she has been the director of UCL's CORU. Her team uses mathematical models and data science. Their goal is to help healthcare workers make the best choices. She focuses on improving care for children and adults after heart surgery in the UK. She also studies how children recover in intensive care.

CHIMERA: Using AI for Patient Care

Since 2020, Professor Pagel has co-led the CHIMERA centre at UCL. This team includes experts from different fields. They analyze anonymous data from patients in intensive care units. These patients are at University College Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The team uses tools like machine learning. This helps them understand how patients' bodies work during illness and recovery. Their aim is to improve the care patients receive.

Helping Children with Heart Conditions

Professor Pagel played a key role in creating a special statistical model. This model helps hospitals understand their success rates for children with congenital heart disease. This is a heart condition present from birth.

The model is called PRAiS (Partial Risk Adjustment in Surgery). Since 2013, it has been used to publish hospital survival rates. Professor Pagel also developed the software for this model. All UK hospitals that perform children's heart surgery use it.

She also led a project to create a website about survival after children's heart surgery. This website was launched in 2016. It helps families understand the information better.

Sharing Science with Everyone

Christina Pagel is very active in encouraging young people to study math and science. She visits schools and universities to share her passion.

Her work on the children's heart surgery website is a great example. It helped create a national guide for researchers. This guide shows how to involve the public in scientific work.

She also helped write a guide called "Making Sense of Statistics." This guide helps people understand numbers and data better. In 2023, she was the Mathematics Section President for the annual British Science Festival. This is a big event where scientists share their work.

Public Engagement and COVID-19

Professor Pagel uses her research skills to analyze public opinion data. She often talks about health policy on podcasts.

In May 2020, she joined the Independent SAGE committee. This group offered independent advice to the UK Government during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As part of this work, she was often quoted in newspapers. She also appeared on TV news channels like ITV News and Sky News. She helped explain the UK's response to the pandemic.

She also contributed to the UK COVID-19 Inquiry. This inquiry looked into how the UK handled the pandemic. She built a website called SageSearch. This website helps people find documents from the official SAGE group.

Since November 2024, Professor Pagel has been writing about the Trump Administration. She covers how it affects science, health, and democracy. In July 2025, she launched the TrumpActionTracker website. This site tracks actions of the administration since January 2025.

Awards and Recognition

Christina Pagel has received several awards for her important work:

• In 2019, she won the Lyn Thomas Impact Medal. This award recognized her work on congenital heart disease. It showed how her work made a big difference for children and adults with this condition.
• In September 2021, she received a special award from The BMJ.
• In October 2021, she won a HealthWatch UK award. Both awards were for her work in sharing science with the public during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• From 2021 to 2022, she was a Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute.
• In November 2021, she received the "Companion of OR" prize from the UK Operational Research Society.
• She became Vice President of the UK Operational Research Society in January 2022. Her term was extended until December 2027.
• In December 2022, she gave the important annual Blackett Lecture.
• In 2023, she was named the Mathematics Section President for the annual British Science Festival. This means she is seen as a leader in her field.
• She won a Royal Statistical Society award in 2023. This was for her article "Physics: Do girls avoid it because it’s too hard?" in BBC Science Focus.
• In 2024, she was made an Honorary Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH). This is the highest level of membership.
• In 2025, she was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.