Lab Members

Virginia Pitzer, joined the Yale School of Public Health as an assistant professor in 2012. She earned her Sc.D. in Epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2007, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton (Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) and a postdoctoral fellow in the Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) program at the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health prior to coming to Yale.Pitzer’s work focuses on mathematical modeling of the transmission dynamics of imperfectly immunizing infections and how interventions such as vaccination, improved treatment of cases, and improvements in sanitation affect disease transmission at the population level. Her primary research is in rotavirus, (one of the leading causes of severe diarrhea in children in developed and developing countries) for which two new vaccines have been recently introduced. She is also interested in the spatiotemporal dynamics of respiratory syncytial virus and evaluating control options for typhoid fever. Her paper Demographic Variability, Vaccination, and the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Rotavirus Epidemics appeared in Science magazine in 2009.

Ernest Asare is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. His primary research focuses on using mathematical models to describe the transmission dynamics, evaluate the impact of interventions and understand the influence of meteorological and climatic factors on diarrhea and malaria diseases. He uses mathematical models to better understand and quantify the drivers of differential impact of rotavirus vaccines. He is also interested in how climate change will affect mosquito population and intensity and distribution of malaria.

Yueqi joined the Pitzer Lab in 2021 as a summer intern and is currently a second year MPH student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases. As part of the team studying rotavirus vaccination in developing countries, she explores the environmental and socioeconomic predictors for vaccine performance in LMICs and estimates disease burden. Outside of class and research, Yueqi enjoys cooking, hiking and karaoke.

Jo joined the Pitzer Lab as a PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases in the Fall of 2021, where they use mathematical models to study the dynamics of infectious disease transmission and vaccination in low-resource settings, with a focus on typhoid fever. Prior to arriving at Yale, Jo worked on mathematical modeling and forecasting for influenza and COVID-19 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When Jo is not in class or building models, they enjoy cooking, climbing, and basketball.