Mike Tildesley obtained a BA (Hons) in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. He went on to study for a Ph.D. in Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics at the University of Cambridge. Upon completion of his Ph.D. in 2003, he changed disciplines and moved to the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick to work with Professor Matt Keeling on livestock infectious disease modelling. His main area of research was to devise optimal control strategies for outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), utilising data from the recent 2001 FMD outbreak.