About the Panelists:
Lance A. Waller is Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. He is also the Co-chair of the National Academies Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics. He received his B.S. in Mathematics from New Mexico State University (1986), and his Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University (1991). Prof. Waller leads the Woodruff Health Science Center's Strategic Initiative in Data Science. He is currently a member of the U.S. National Academy of Science Board on Mathematical Science and Analytics and serves as co-Chair of the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics. Prof. Waller was recently appointed to a three-year term on the US Census Bureau's Scientific Advisory Committee. His research involves the development and application of statistical methods for spatially referenced data including applications in environmental justice, neurology, epidemiology, disease surveillance, conservation biology, and disease ecology. He has published in a variety of biostatistical, statistical, environmental health, and ecology journals and is co-author with Carol Gotway of the text Applied Spatial Statistics for Public Health Data (2004, Wiley).
Thomas A. Louis is an Emeritus Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Former Chair of the AAAS Statistics Section. He collaborates on biomedical studies and surveys using the Bayesian framework as an aid to navigation. His research interests include environmental, health and public policy and development of related statistical procedures. Methods research concentrates on Bayesian modeling, the analysis of observational studies and research synthesis. Current applications include assessing the health effects of airborne particulate matter, clinical quality improvement, cardio-pulmonary consequences of AIDS therapies, evaluation of teacher effectiveness, small area estimation and statistical methods to assess environmental justice. He received his PhD at Columbia University and BA at Dartmouth College.
About the Moderator:
Natalie Dean is an Assistant Professor at Emory University's Rollins School of Public. She earned her PhD in Biostatistics from Harvard University and completed her postdoctoral work at the University of Florida. She was also a statistical consultant for the World Health Organization's HIV Department. Before arriving at Emory, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida. Her areas of expertise are in infectious disease epidemiology and vaccine study design. Her research focuses on clinical trial and observational studies for evaluating vaccine efficacy, with a focus on emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola, Zika, and COVID-19.
Dr. Dean is the Principal Investigator of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases grant R01-AI139761 on vaccine study design for emerging infectious disease threats. She is a Co-Investigator on a cluster-randomized trial of Targeted Indoor Residual Spraying for the prevention of Aedes-borne disease in Mexico. She has been funded on other research activities supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. She received a 2020 Excellence Award for Assistant Professors from the Provost of the University of Florida and was selected to the 2022 COPSS Leadership Academy. Dr. Dean has been internationally recognized for her public engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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