Lauren Meyers

Last updated
Lauren Meyers
CitizenshipAmerican
Education Harvard University (BS)
Stanford University (PhD)
Scientific career
FieldsBiology
Institutions University of Texas at Austin
Doctoral advisor Marcus W. Feldman [1]

Lauren Ancel Meyers is an American integrative biologist who holds the Denton A. Cooley Centennial Professorship in Zoology at the University of Texas at Austin. [2] She is also a member of the Santa Fe Institute External Faculty. [3]

Contents

Career

Meyers earned her Bachelor of Arts degree, magna cum laude , in mathematics and philosophy at Harvard University (1996) and her PhD in biological sciences at Stanford University (2000). [1] She then did post-doctoral work with the National Science Foundation for two years. [2]

Meyers specializes in network epidemiology and works in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies on diseases such as COVID-19, pandemic influenza, Ebola, HIV, Swine flu, [4] and Zika. [3] When the COVID-19 pandemic appeared she quickly realized it presented a unique danger and had long feared about such a pandemic. Her team formed the COVID-19 Modeling Consortium and coordinates with the White House Coronavirus Task Force. [5] [6] Meyers and other epidemiologists knew that the 2009 swine flu pandemic could have been much worse and that much better preparations for a future pandemic were needed. She is concerned that people will not take necessary precautions for the COVID-19 pandemic. [4] Her team discovered that every day of delay in implementing social distancing measures added 2.4 days to the length of an outbreak. [7] On 30 June 2020, she predicted that without major and quick behavior change at least some locales will require a Stage 5 (red) shutdown. [8] Meyers emphasizes that COVID-19 does spread silently. [9] [10] Meyers further states that trait of COVID-19, coupled with its rapid transmission interval, only an average of 4 days, makes COVID-19 very dangerous. By comparison, this is very different from SARS, which has an 8-day transmission interval and is more visible. [9] [11]

Academic positions

Honors and awards

Education

Selected publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 "Lauren Ancel Meyers" (PDF). University of Texas. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Lauren Ancel Meyers". University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  3. 1 2 "Lauren Ancel Meyers". University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  4. 1 2 Heid, Jason (12 June 2020). "How a Texas Expert on Swine Flu Had to Change Her Game". Texas Monthly. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  5. ↑ Cone, Tonyia (27 May 2020). "COVID-19 in Context: Epidemiologist and Community Member Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers Predicts and Guides Coronavirus Decision Making". The Jewish Outlook. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  6. ↑ Korte, Lara (24 April 2020). "Coronavirus in Texas: UT's top epidemiologist has been preparing for this fight for decades". The Statesman. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  7. ↑ "For Each Day's Delay in Social Distancing, a COVID-19 Outbreak Lasts Days Longer". University of Texas News. 1 June 2020. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  8. ↑ Thornton, Ryan (30 June 2020). "Without rapid behavior change, city heads for stage 5 shutdown". Austin Monitor. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  9. 1 2 "Coronavirus Spreads Quickly and Sometimes Before People Have Symptoms, Study Finds". University of Texas News. 16 March 2020. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  10. ↑ Freer, Emma (10 June 2020). "COVID-19 'can and does spread silently' says UT's Lauren Ancel Meyers as Austin sees daily cases spike again". Austonia. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  11. ↑ Meyers, Lauren (20 March 2020). "The secret life of coronavirus: Why we need such drastic social distancing measures". Economics Intelligence Unit. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
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