Prof Akke Vellinga is an epidemiologist and Ad Astra Professor in the School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Sports Science, University College Dublin. Her research focuses on infections, antibiotic use and resistance in general practice, secondary care and long-term care. Her research is anchored in a methodological, ethical and economic framework, reflected in her publications. She aims to support appropriate prescribing of antibiotics through education and feedback for prescribers, patients and public.

She is currently setting up a data-sharing platform (CARAnetwork.ie) which will allow users, including GPs, patients and researchers, to visualise health data in graphs and maps. Through dashboards users can access different visualisations and use filters to explore data from certain (patient) groups, or click into elements to access more in-depth information.
As part of a European initiative, she is leading the Irish arm of the PRUDENCE study, which is implemented in more than 15 European countries. PRUDENCE aims to improve antibiotic prescribing by providing point of care (POC) tests in general practice. The POC tests can help the GP determine if an infection is viral or bacterial, and if antibiotics are helpful or not. She is the Irish lead in a new initiative, ECRAID, European Clinical Research Alliance on Infectious Diseases, a project which provides a European platform to run clinical trials.  

Akke has more than 120 peer-reviewed publications, the majority as senior author, on topics including infectious diseases, antibiotic prescribing and resistance, diabetes, zoonotic diseases, asthma and allergies, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and statistical modelling applications, reflecting her research activity in these areas.