I am currently working as a Statistician Modeler in the COVID Modeling Team at the California Department of Public Health. Prior to that, I served as a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at USAID Office of HIV/AIDS (2020-2021). I was a post-doctoral research fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) from 2018-2020. I finished my Ph.D. in July of 2018 at the University of Minnesota in the Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior where I worked in the Craft and Forester lab groups as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. I completed my B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and B.A. in Spanish in 2012 at the University of Virginia.
She/her/hers
United States
National Science Foundation, Division of Environmental Biology
People: Lauren White
2017 – 2018 Continue Reading DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Using dynamic network models to reveal how heterogeneity in behavioral and immune competence impact disease dynamics in an emerging wildlife disease
White LA, León TM. (2026). Forecastability of infectious disease time series: are some seasons and pathogens intrinsically more difficult to forecast?. PLoS computational biology, 22(4)
Lu P, Jain S, León TM, White LA. (2026). CalCORVID: a dynamic RShiny dashboard approach to visualize spatiotemporal clusters for public health surveillance. BMC public health
Thakur M, White LA, Pugliese J, Crow D, Lu P, Linton N, McCorvie R, Ravuri S, Sánchez C HM, Siegel B, Vargo J, León TM. (2025). Keeping a modeling-driven public health dashboard relevant-lessons learned from the California Communicable diseases Assessment Tool. Frontiers in public health, (13)
León TM, White LA, Spindler H, Schwab J, Petersen ML, Vargo J, Wheeler W, Shete PB, Jain S, Watt J, Pan ES, Kilpatrick AM. (2025). Fostering public health and academic partnerships during and beyond a public health emergency: lessons learned from COVID-19. American journal of epidemiology
Mathis SM, Webber AE, León TM, Murray EL, Sun M, White LA, Brooks LC, Green A, Hu AJ, Rosenfeld R, Shemetov D, Tibshirani RJ, McDonald DJ, Kandula S, Pei S, Yaari R, Yamana TK, Shaman J, Agarwal P, Balusu S, Gururajan G, Kamarthi H, Prakash BA, Raman R, Zhao Z, Rodríguez A, Meiyappan A, Omar S, Baccam P, Gurung HL, Suchoski BT, Stage SA, Ajelli M, Kummer AG, Litvinova M, Ventura PC, Wadsworth S, Niemi J, Carcelen E, Hill AL, Loo SL, McKee CD, Sato K, Smith C, Truelove S, Jung SM, Lemaitre JC, Lessler J, McAndrew T, Ye W, Bosse N, Hlavacek WS, Lin YT, Mallela A, Gibson GC, Chen Y, Lamm SM, Lee J, Posner RG, Perofsky AC, Viboud C, Clemente L, Lu F, Meyer AG, Santillana M, Chinazzi M, Davis JT, Mu K, Pastore Y Piontti A, Vespignani A, Xiong X, Ben-Nun M, Riley P, Turtle J, Hulme-Lowe C, Jessa S, Nagraj VP, Turner SD, Williams D, Basu A, Drake JM, Fox SJ, Suez E, Cojocaru MG, Thommes EW, Cramer EY, Gerding A, Stark A, Ray EL, Reich NG, Shandross L, Wattanachit N, Wang Y, Zorn MW, Aawar MA, Srivastava A, Meyers LA, Adiga A, Hurt B, Kaur G, Lewis BL, Marathe M, Venkatramanan S, Butler P, Farabow A, Ramakrishnan N, Muralidhar N, Reed C, Biggerstaff M, Borchering RK. (2024). Title evaluation of FluSight influenza forecasting in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons with a new target laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations. Nature communications, 15(1)
Ravuri S, Burnor E, Routledge I, Linton NM, Thakur M, Boehm A, Wolfe M, Bischel HN, Naughton CC, Yu AT, White LA, León TM. (2024). Estimating effective reproduction numbers using wastewater data from multiple sewersheds for SARS-CoV-2 in California counties. Epidemics, (50)
Lin E, Bilinski A, Collender PA, Lee V, Sud SR, León TM, White LA, Remais JV, Head JR. (2024). COVID-19 Incidence and Age Eligibility for Elementary School. JAMA network open, 7(11)
Head JR, Collender PA, León TM, White LA, Sud SR, Camponuri SK, Lee V, Lewnard JA, Remais JV. (2024). COVID-19 Vaccination and Incidence of Pediatric SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Hospitalization. JAMA network open, 7(4)
White LA, McCorvie R, Crow D, Jain S, León TM. (2023). Assessing the accuracy of California county level COVID-19 hospitalization forecasts to inform public policy decision making. BMC public health, 23(1)
Mathis SM, Webber AE, León TM, Murray EL, Sun M, White LA, Brooks LC, Green A, Hu AJ, McDonald DJ, Rosenfeld R, Shemetov D, Tibshirani RJ, Kandula S, Pei S, Shaman J, Yaari R, Yamana TK, Agarwal P, Balusu S, Gururajan G, Kamarthi H, Prakash BA, Raman R, Rodríguez A, Zhao Z, Meiyappan A, Omar S, Baccam P, Gurung HL, Stage SA, Suchoski BT, Ajelli M, Kummer AG, Litvinova M, Ventura PC, Wadsworth S, Niemi J, Carcelen E, Hill AL, Jung SM, Lemaitre JC, Lessler J, Loo SL, McKee CD, Sato K, Smith C, Truelove S, McAndrew T, Ye W, Bosse N, Hlavacek WS, Lin YT, Mallela A, Chen Y, Lamm SM, Lee J, Posner RG, Perofsky AC, Viboud C, Clemente L, Lu F, Meyer AG, Santillana M, Chinazzi M, Davis JT, Mu K, Piontti APY, Vespignani A, Xiong X, Ben-Nun M, Riley P, Turtle J, Hulme-Lowe C, Jessa S, Nagraj VP, Turner SD, Williams D, Basu A, Drake JM, Fox SJ, Gibson GC, Suez E, Thommes EW, Cojocaru MG, Cramer EY, Gerding A, Stark A, Ray EL, Reich NG, Shandross L, Wattanachit N, Wang Y, Zorn MW, Al Aawar M, Srivastava A, Meyers LA, Adiga A, Hurt B, Kaur G, Lewis BL, Marathe M, Venkatramanan S, Butler P, Farabow A, Muralidhar N, Ramakrishnan N, Reed C, Biggerstaff M, Borchering RK. (2023). Evaluation of FluSight influenza forecasting in the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons with a new target laboratory-confirmed influenza hospitalizations. medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences
Michalska-Smith M, Enns EA, White LA, Gilbertson MLJ, Craft ME. (2023). The illusion of personal health decisions for infectious disease management: disease spread in social contact networks. Royal Society open science, 10(3)
Manlove K, Wilber M, White L, Bastille-Rousseau G, Yang A, Gilbertson MLJ, Craft ME, Cross PC, Wittemyer G, Pepin KM. (2022). Defining an epidemiological landscape that connects movement ecology to pathogen transmission and pace-of-life. Ecology letters
Hundt PJ, White LA, Craft ME, Bajer PG. (2022). Social associations in common carp (Cyprinus carpio): Insights from induced feeding aggregations for targeted management strategies. Ecology and evolution, 12(3)
Shaw AK, White LA, Michalska-Smith M, Borer ET, Craft ME, Seabloom EW, Snell-Rood EC, Travisano M. (2021). Lessons from movement ecology for the return to work: Modeling contacts and the spread of COVID-19. PloS one, 16(1)
Gilbertson MLJ, White LA, Craft ME. (2021). Trade-offs with telemetry-derived contact networks for infectious disease studies in wildlife. Methods in ecology and evolution, 12(1)
White LA, VandeWoude S, Craft ME. (2020). A mechanistic, stigmergy model of territory formation in solitary animals: Territorial behavior can dampen disease prevalence but increase persistence. PLoS computational biology, 16(6)
White LA, Mordechai L. (2020). Modeling the Justinianic Plague: Comparing hypothesized transmission routes. PloS one, 15(4)
White LA, Siva-Jothy JA, Craft ME, Vale PF. (2020). Genotype and sex-based host variation in behaviour and susceptibility drives population disease dynamics. Proceedings. Biological sciences, 287(1938)
Worsley-Tonks KEL, Escobar LE, Biek R, Castaneda-Guzman M, Craft ME, Streicker DG, White LA, Fountain-Jones NM. (2020). Using host traits to predict reservoir host species of rabies virus. PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 14(12)
White LA, Forester JD, Craft ME. (2018). Disease outbreak thresholds emerge from interactions between movement behavior, landscape structure, and epidemiology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(28)
White LA, Torremorell M, Craft ME. (2017). Influenza A virus in swine breeding herds: Combination of vaccination and biosecurity practices can reduce likelihood of endemic piglet reservoir. Preventive veterinary medicine, (138)
White LA, Forester JD, Craft ME. (2018). Dynamic, spatial models of parasite transmission in wildlife: Their structure, applications and remaining challenges. The Journal of animal ecology, 87(3)
Stadler RV, White LA, Hu K, Helmke BP, Guilford WH. (2017). Direct measurement of cortical force generation and polarization in a living parasite. Molecular biology of the cell, 28(14)
(2017). Covariation between the physiological and behavioral components of pathogen transmission: host heterogeneity determines epidemic outcomes. OIKOS, 127(4)
Ezenwa VO, Archie EA, Craft ME, Hawley DM, Martin LB, Moore J, White L. (2016). Host behaviour-parasite feedback: an essential link between animal behaviour and disease ecology. Proceedings. Biological sciences, 283(1828)
White LA, Forester JD, Craft ME. (2017). Using contact networks to explore mechanisms of parasite transmission in wildlife. Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 92(1)
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