About

Dr. Meyers is the Cooley Centennial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she was the founding chair of the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences and recently established the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, an NIH- and CDC-funded national center for pandemic modeling. For over 20 years, Dr. Meyers has pioneered the application of data-driven models and machine learning to improve the detection, surveillance, forecasting and control of emerging viral threats. She has built decision-support tools and provided time-sensitive analyses during the SARS, 2009 H1N1, Ebola, and Zika threats for public health and government leaders, including the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), US National Defense Council, and state and local agencies. Dr. Meyers’ COVID-19 Modeling Consortium has provided global leadership throughout the pandemic. They maintain multiple COVID-19 forecasting dashboards, have informed COVID-19 surveillance, response, testing and school opening strategies across the US, published dozens of COVID-19 commissioned reports and peer-reviewed articles and created two interactive risk maps to guide outbreak detection and school openings that were featured on the front page of the New York Times. Dr. Meyers was named as one of the top 100 global innovators under age 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2004 and received the Joseph Lieberman Award for Significant Contributions to Science in 2017.

Recent Press

Lectures

2021

    The Science of Herd Immunity

    Defeating COVID-19 with Jason McLellan and Lauren Ancel Meyers

    RDAR's Seminar Series - Lauren Ancel Meyers

2020

    UWM Marden Lecture: Modeling to Mitigate the COVID-19 Pandemic - Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers

    IBEST-IMCI Seminar: Lauren Ancel Meyers

    TAMEST Conversation on COVID-19: Mitigating the Outbreak in Texas

    TAMEST Conversation on COVID-19 Modeling and Testing in Texas

    LBJ In the Arena - Mapping COVID-19 and its Policy Applications

    After the First Wave

2019


2014


2013

    Digital Disease Detection 2013 Rapid Fire Talks

    C4 Public Lecture: The Science Of Pandemics

2010

    The Swine Flu and You: Predicting and Controlling the H1N1 Pandemic

2009

    Using Network Models to Predict and Control 2009 (H1N1) Pandemic Influenza

Curriculum vitae

Education

  • 1991-1996 Harvard University: B.A., Magna cum laude, Mathematics & Philosophy
  • 1996-2000 Stanford University: Ph.D. in Biological Sciences

Academic Positions

  • 2020- Founding Director, University of Texas at Austin (UT) COVID-19 Modeling Consortium
  • 2011- Professor, Department of Integrative Biology and Department of Statistics & Data Science, UT
  • 2011-2014 Founding Chair, Department of Statistics & Data Science, UT
  • 2007-2011 Associate Professor, Integrative Biology, UT
  • 2008-2010 Associate Director, Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation, UT
  • 2003-2007 Assistant Professor, Integrative Biology, UT
  • 2003- External Faculty, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico
  • 2000-2002 NSF Postdoctoral Fellow: Emory University (Advisor: Bruce Levin) and Santa Fe Institute

Awards & Fellowships

  • 2018- Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professorship, UT
  • 2017 Joseph Lieberman Award for Significant Contributions to Science
  • 2011-2013, 16-18 William H. and Gladys G. Reeder Faculty Fellow, UT
  • 2006-2010, 14-15 Fellow, University of Texas Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology
  • 2013 Center for Excellence in Education - Excellence and Achievement Award
  • 2010-2011 Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellowship, UT
  • 2005 College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award, University of Texas
  • 2004 MIT Technology Review TR100: One of 100 Top Global Innovators Under 35
  • 2000-2002 National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biological Informatics
  • 2000-2002 Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • 2000 Samuel Karlin Prize for Ph.D Thesis in Mathematical Biology
  • 1999 Steinmetz Fellowship, Santa Fe Institute
  • 1996-1999 National Defense Science & Engineering Graduate Fellowship
  • 1991-1995 U.S. Congressional National Science Scholar

Research & Teaching Activities

  • Publications: 100+ peer-reviewed publications in mathematics, evolutionary biology and infectious disease epidemiology since 1992.
  • Research grant support: Five major research grants and seven collaborative grants to support work in infectious disease epidemiology from National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
  • Professional Services: Associate editor for Epidemics, Evolution, Interdisciplinary Perspective on Infectious Diseases, PLoS Computational Biology, and Journal of Molecular Evolution; Member, Faculty of 1000.
  • Media events: Research has been featured by CNN, Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, LA Times, Austin American Statesman, MIT Technology Review, WIRED, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC.
  • Invited presentations: 90+ invited lectures and seminars at international conferences, top-tier universities, and government agencies since 1999.
  • Courses & Advising Undergraduate and graduate courses in biostatistics and computational biology. Advise dozens of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers.
  • Educational Outreach Instructor for Summer Institute in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases (SISMID), Texas State Honors Summer Math Camp, Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School, and MIT Research Science Institute.

Full CV (updated 10/2022) available here: [PDF]