Ludmila moved to lush Scotland from her native Sofia to pursue her passion for life sciences with a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of St Andrews. During her BSc, she became interested in both infectious diseases and neurodegeneration, and eventually decided to specialise in Alzheimer’s disease because of a family history of dementia. She did her PhD at the MRC Prion Unit of University College London. Her project focused on understanding the cellular and molecular mechanisms of amyloid β seeding and aggregation, and she had the privilege of working alongside many leading dementia experts throughout.
Following her PhD, her interest in research and science communication led to an assistant editorial position at The Lancet journals. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, she became a senior editor at The Lancet Infectious Diseases and handled the peer review of numerous randomised, observational, and modelling studies on topics such as tuberculosis point-of-care testing, human papillomavirus vaccination, and COVID-19 epidemiology and vaccine safety. She also wrote several well-read editorials, notably on misinformation in health and vaccine equity.
Over the course of the pandemic, Ludmila realised that it was time for her to go back home and give back to her country after more than a decade of skill building abroad. She joined the Angels Initiative in November 2021 as a consultant and is extremely proud to be a part of this team of highly motivated people and share in their contagious enthusiasm for patient wellbeing and physician education.
