What to know
- Data scientists work to build, test, and improve computational tools at the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics to analyze disease outbreak data in real time.
- See how CFA's data scientists, like Katie Gostic, use their skills to forecast public health outbreaks.
Data Scientist Katie
Education History
B.A. Biology
Ph.D. Biology
Describe your career path to CFA
"As an undergraduate student, I studied infectious disease dynamics. Then, I knew I wanted to build a career using models and information analysis to guide public health decision-making.
I completed my Ph.D. in Jamie Lloyd-Smith's lab at UCLA. Here, I learned to build stochastic models that can help us understand data from early outbreaks.
At the University of Chicago, I was a graduate student and then a postdoctoral fellow. I researched how infection history shapes immunity to evolving influenza viruses.
In 2020, I worked to support the pandemic response in Illinois, and I realized the specific challenges of analyzing outbreak data in real-time. In addition, there is a need for response-ready tools to support these kinds of analyses.
In the fall 2022, I joined CFA. I'm excited to be part of this invaluable work."
What do you like best about working at CFA?
"First and foremost, I love working in a team of smart, kind, and collaborative people. I also feel CFA work is rewarding and intellectually challenging. I am constantly learning to new things, solving new problems, and seeing the impacts of my work in real-time."