Dr Mark Little



Senior Investigator, National Cancer Institute

Dr Mark Little joined the National Cancer Institute, Radiation Epidemiology Branch (REB) in 2010 as Senior Scientist, becoming a Senior Investigator in 2012. He studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge and obtained his doctorate in mathematics at New College, Oxford. Over the last three decades he has been analysing cancer and cardiovascular disease risks in the Japanese atomic bomb survivors, and in other irradiated populations and offspring. Previously (2000-2010), he worked in Imperial College London, and before that (1992-2000) at UK National Radiological Protection Board (now part of the UK Health Security Agency).

He is a member of Council of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) and Program Area Committee 1, and has served as consultant to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, to the International Atomic Energy Agency, to the International Committee on Radiological Protection (ICRP) (in particular as member of ICRP Task Groups 91, 119 and 122), to the UK Committee on the Medical Aspects of Radiation in the Environment, and to various NCRP committees (those responsible for writing Commentary 24 and Report 186, also SC 1-28).

In REB, Dr. Little is working on assessment of leukaemia risk in persons exposed at low doses and dose rates, cancer risk in various cohorts of persons exposed as result of the Chernobyl accident, on risks of various health endpoints in the US cohort of radiologic technologists, and on treatment-related second cancer risks in various populations. He has particular interests in machine learning methods and dose measurement error models, with application to assessment of low-dose and low-dose-rate risk of childhood leukaemia, circulatory disease and cataract.  He has over 380 publications in the peer-reviewed literature.