Katie joined the lab as a McDonnell Foundation Complex Systems Postdoc after completing her PhD at UCLA. As a doctoral student, she studied immune imprinting, a pattern in which individuals retain particularly strong, lifelong immune memory of the influenza viruses encountered in childhood, sometimes at the expense of equally strong protection against strains encountered later in life. Now Katie studies the immune processes that allow such biases in immune memory to develop. Ultimately, her research aims to understand epidemiological outcomes as an emergent property of within-host immune dynamics. She hopes insights from her research can help bridge the gap between immunology and epidemiology, and inform influenza vaccination strategies. When not doing science, Katie loves to backpack and hike in the mountains, and freediving in the kelp forests of California.
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
People: Katelyn Gostic, Sarah Cobey
2019 – 2026 Continue Reading Longitudinal dynamics of protection after influenza infection and vaccination
Bubar K, Middleton C, Larremore D, Gostic K. (2025). A fundamental limit to the effectiveness of traveller screening with molecular tests. Epidemiology and infection, (153)
Yang B, Gostic KM, Adam DC, Zhang R, Einav T, Peng L, Wong SS, Tsang TK, Cummings DAT, Sullivan SG, Cobey S, Cowling BJ. (2025). Breadth of influenza A antibody cross-reactivity varies by virus isolation interval and subtype. Nature microbiology
Charniga K, Park SW, Akhmetzhanov AR, Cori A, Dushoff J, Funk S, Gostic KM, Linton NM, Lison A, Overton CE, Pulliam JRC, Ward T, Cauchemez S, Abbott S. (2024). Best practices for estimating and reporting epidemiological delay distributions of infectious diseases. PLoS computational biology, 20(10)
Tsang TK, Gostic KM, Chen S, Wang Y, Arevalo P, Lau EHY, Cobey S, Cowling BJ. (2023). Investigation of the Impact of Childhood Immune Imprinting on Birth Year-Specific Risk of Clinical Infection During Influenza A Virus Epidemics in Hong Kong. The Journal of infectious diseases, 228(2)
Cable J, Sun J, Cheon IS, Vaughan AE, Castro IA, Stein SR, López CB, Gostic KM, Openshaw PJM, Ellebedy AH, Wack A, Hutchinson E, Thomas MM, Langlois RA, Lingwood D, Baker SF, Folkins M, Foxman EF, Ward AB, Schwemmle M, Russell AB, Chiu C, Ganti K, Subbarao K, Sheahan TP, Penaloza-MacMaster P, Eddens T. (2023). Respiratory viruses: New frontiers-a Keystone Symposia report. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1522(1)
Rasoamalala F, Gostic K, Parany MJ, Rahelinirina S, Rahajandraibe S, Gorgé O, Valade E, Harimalala M, Rajerison M, Ramasindrazana B. (2023). Population dynamics of plague vector fleas in an endemic focus: implications for plague surveillance. Journal of medical entomology
Richardson R, Jorgensen E, Arevalo P, Holden TM, Gostic KM, Pacilli M, Ghinai I, Lightner S, Cobey S, Gerardin J. (2022). Tracking changes in SARS-CoV-2 transmission with a novel outpatient sentinel surveillance system in Chicago, USA. Nature communications, 13(1)
Oidtman RJ, Arevalo P, Bi Q, McGough L, Russo CJ, Vera Cruz D, Costa Vieira M, Gostic KM. (2021). Influenza immune escape under heterogeneous host immune histories. Trends in microbiology
Vegvari C, Abbott S, Ball F, Brooks-Pollock E, Challen R, Collyer BS, Dangerfield C, Gog JR, Gostic KM, Heffernan JM, Hollingsworth TD, Isham V, Kenah E, Mollison D, Panovska-Griffiths J, Pellis L, Roberts MG, Scalia Tomba G, Thompson RN, Trapman P. (2021). Commentary on the use of the reproduction number R during the COVID-19 pandemic. Statistical methods in medical research
Viboud C, Gostic K, Nelson MI, Price GE, Perofsky A, Sun K, Sequeira Trovão N, Cowling BJ, Epstein SL, Spiro DJ. (2020). Beyond clinical trials: Evolutionary and epidemiological considerations for development of a universal influenza vaccine. PLoS pathogens, 16(9)
Gostic KM, McGough L, Baskerville EB, Abbott S, Joshi K, Tedijanto C, Kahn R, Niehus R, Hay JA, De Salazar PM, Hellewell J, Meakin S, Munday JD, Bosse NI, Sherrat K, Thompson RN, White LF, Huisman JS, Scire J, Bonhoeffer S, Stadler T, Wallinga J, Funk S, Lipsitch M, Cobey S. (2020). Practical considerations for measuring the effective reproductive number, Rt. PLoS computational biology, 16(12)
Gostic K, Gomez ACR, Mummah RO, Kucharski AJ, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2020). Estimated effectiveness of symptom and risk screening to prevent the spread of COVID-19. eLife, (9)
Gostic KM, McGough L, Baskerville EB, Abbott S, Joshi K, Tedijanto C, Kahn R, Niehus R, Hay J, De Salazar PM, Hellewell J, Meakin S, Munday J, Bosse NI, Sherrat K, Thompson RN, White LF, Huisman JS, Scire J, Bonhoeffer S, Stadler T, Wallinga J, Funk S, Lipsitch M, Cobey S. (2020). Practical considerations for measuring the effective reproductive number, R (t). medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
Gostic KM, Gomez ACR, Mummah RO, Kucharski AJ, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2020). Estimated effectiveness of traveller screening to prevent international spread of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
Gostic KM, Bridge R, Brady S, Viboud C, Worobey M, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2019). Childhood immune imprinting to influenza A shapes birth year-specific risk during seasonal H1N1 and H3N2 epidemics. PLoS pathogens, 15(12)
Gostic KM, Wunder EA Jr., Bisht V, Hamond C, Julian TR, Ko AI, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2019). Mechanistic dose-response modelling of animal challenge data shows that intact skin is a crucial barrier to leptospiral infection. Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 374(1782)
Gostic KM, Ambrose M, Worobey M, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2017). Maternal antibodies' role in immunity-Response. Science (New York, N.Y.), 355(6326)
Gostic KM, Ambrose M, Worobey M, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2016). Potent protection against H5N1 and H7N9 influenza via childhood hemagglutinin imprinting. Science (New York, N.Y.), 354(6313)
Gostic KM, Kucharski AJ, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2015). Effectiveness of traveller screening for emerging pathogens is shaped by epidemiology and natural history of infection. eLife, (4)
Buhnerkempe MG, Gostic K, Park M, Ahsan P, Belser JA, Lloyd-Smith JO. (2015). Mapping influenza transmission in the ferret model to transmission in humans. eLife, (4)
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