Dr. Elizabeth Halloran, the Ross Prentice Professor of Biostatistics in the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine and member at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is internationally recognized as a pre-eminent researcher in the study of infectious disease. She is at the forefront of efforts to thwart a flu pandemic and serves as an advisor to federal public health and security agencies.
After a long tenure at Emory University in Atlanta, Halloran and her longtime research collaborator Ira Longini joined the UW community earlier this year.
Q: Why did you come to the UW? Why now?
A: The University of Washington’s global health initiative and its plans, together with the Hutch, to build a vaccine center presented a great opportunity for us. We were recruited to help build those initiatives and to build a center for computational epidemiology as part of those initiatives.
Q: You use stochastic models to study infectious disease interventions. Can you explain this model?
A: The stochastic model mirrors the uncertainty of how infectious diseases are spread. Our computer, Psyche, randomly assigns outcomes in much the way nature does. A disease carrier might infect many people, or have symptoms of the disease, limited contact with others, and infect nobody. The model uses census demographics to calculate how a pandemic would spread in the United States.
Q: You focus on infectious diseases in your research, specifically interventions for infectious diseases. What are your research priorities?
A: At the moment, I am working on how to evaluate interventions such as vaccines for infectious diseases, such as influenza. I am also interested in novel study designs and statistical methods of analysis of such studies.We do mathematical modeling of infectious diseases such as a pandemic influenza. I am also working on methods to analyze gene expression experiments in the development of immune memory and how vaccines work.
Q: You recently proposed in the journal Science that giving influenza vaccines to school-age children might reduce overall transmission of flu in the community. Why?
A: We want to look at the possibility of a nationwide study of vaccinating school-age children against the flu to reduce overall transmission. School-age children may be one of the best transmitters of the flu virus, simply because they easily spread viruses to their families and classmates.
Q: How did you become interested in science?
A: When I was young, my grandfather gave me little mathematical puzzles to solve and we played Scrabble. In college, I found myself drawn to mathematics and physics. Back then, I was usually with only one other girl in the math and physics classes.
Q: When did you become interested in statistical modeling?
A: After getting my medical degree in Berlin, I got a master’s degree in public health, with a focus on tropical health, from the Harvard School of Public Health. It was there that I rediscovered the quantitative methods, including modeling, biostatistics, and study design methodology, and went on to get my doctoral degree.
Q: You were featured in the March issue of Vogue magazine as a trailblazer and power player. In addition to all of your scientific accolades, the author also noted that you were “for academia, well turned out, with a closet full of Armani, Dolce, Manolo, and Pucci.” How did you get featured in Vogue?
A: We had published a paper in the journal Science on models of intervention in a flu pandemic. The research, supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), received a lot of press coverage. Vogue was looking for a scientist to feature and contacted the press officer of the NIGMS. She suggested me. She recalled that I wore Manolo Blahnik shoes. I was wearing Manolo Blahnik’s way before Sex and the City made them popular. I like good clothes and try to dress nicely.
Q: It goes without saying that you are a high achiever. What do you do for fun?
A: I take piano lessons. My last piano recital, I played the Last Beethoven Sonata. I have just begun private lessons with Craig Sheppard, professor in the School of Music, here at the UW. I’ve also studied ballet and love ballroom dancing. I enjoy backpacking and hiking. I have a big art collection. And I do tai chi every morning — I can do the splits on both sides.
Q: Some would call you a renaissance woman. Would you agree?
A: I enjoy a number of things. I’m not afraid to take risks. It’s important to try to have a sense of humor and to be generous and kind.