UW News
UW experts on novel coronavirus (COVID-19)
The University of Washington is home to many experts on topics related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Expand each topic to see their names and specific expertise. Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
Public health
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Marissa Baker | Worker health and safety; worker health effects related to COVID-19; health effects of job displacement or job insecurity; vulnerable workers; controls for worker protection |
| Janet Baseman | Epidemiology, public health practice, public health surveillance, public health emergency preparedness and response systems |
| Betty Bekemeier | Local public health department practice, systems, workforce, and funding; public health practice strengths and needs in the wake of COVID-19 |
| Jared Baeten | Infectious disease physician, public health, global health, epidemiology |
| Jerry Cangelosi | Screening, self-sampling, infectious disease emergence, occupational exposure, global health |
| Nicole Errett | Disaster research: preparation and recovery |
| Hilary Godwin | Translating public health communications and projections for a general audience; insights into how to make good, evidence-based decisions in times of uncertainty |
| Anne Hirsch | Nursing education |
| Rodney Ho | Anti-viral or COVID-19/SAR drug expert, drugs in development, experimental treatment and prevention, global drug access, clinical virology, drug repurposing, translational medicine, infectious disease expert |
| Aaron Katz | Health care policy, public health policy, health care markets, health insurance markets, health care safety net, health care reform, Medicaid, ACA, global health policy, global AIDS policy |
| Scott Meschke | Environmental virology |
| Dr. Peter Rabinowitz | Zoononics, One Health, all things epidemiology and virus related |
| Marilyn Roberts | Contamination and disinfection in the environment and on surfaces |
| Tatiana Sadak | Geriatric mental health, multi-morbidity, caregiving, dementia, and educating nurses during pandemic |
| Paul Yager | Microfluidic bacterial and viral testing at the point of care |
Medicine and virology
For experts in the School of Medicine, please contact the UW Medicine Newsroom.
Mental health and human connection
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Susan Joslyn | Decision-making, risk communication |
| Jonathan Kanter | Connecting with people while social distancing; depression and human connection; xenophobia |
| Peter Kahn | Impact of nature on health, particularly mental health. Strategies for experiencing benefits of nature while indoors, at home, on walks. |
| Lynn Katz | Communicating with children about coronavirus; parenting in the context of coronavirus |
| Joshua Lawler | Nature’s health benefits, and the effectiveness of programs and policies designed to take advantage of those benefits |
| Liliana Lengua | Impact of stress on children and families; coping with stress; parenting; mindfulness for parents |
| Jane Simoni | Coping with trauma, chronic illness and other stressful life events; behavioral interventions; culturally relevant disease prevention |
| Dr. Pooja Tandon | Strategies for play and exercise for children during COVID-19 restrictions |
| Riki Thompson | Connecting through digital technologies, pandemic dating, polyamory during a pandemic, managing non-monogamous and polyamorous relationships during COVID, social media and mental health |
| Kathleen Wolf | Nature’s benefits for human health, especially on mental health and well-being |
Policy, law, political science and supply chain
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Ann Bostrom | Risk perception, risk communication, and decision making under uncertainty |
| Benjamin Brunjes | Public management, emergency management and response, federal/state/local coordination, spending and resource allocation, public/private partnerships, supply chain, use of contractors, human capital |
| Anne Goodchild | Impact of the higher number of deliveries on transportation and supply chains, potential impacts on retail/food and prepared food delivery systems |
| Bill Keough | Supply chain and logistics |
| Aseem Prakash | Impact of COVID-19 on supply chain, climate change |
| Anita Ramasastry | Supply chains, workers rights, business and contract issues |
| Hugh Spitzer | Law, state and local laws regarding shelter-in-place orders, National Guard powers |
Business and economics
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Diana Pearce | Income inequality |
| Jennie Romich | Poverty, government policies to address inequities |
| Jacob Vigdor | Regional job market, impact on small business |
Education
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Katie Davis | Technology’s role in child/adolescent development and wellbeing |
| Meredith Honig | School district decision-making |
| Julie Kientz | Families, kids and technology; consumer health technologies; human-centered design; families using technology to navigate home-based learning during COVID-19 |
| Soojin Oh Park | Early childhood development, parenting, race and income equity, immigrant-origin children, family engagement |
Data, modeling and misinformation
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Aleksandr Aravkin | COVID-19 modeling; mathematical and statistical analysis, and applications to natural, physical, and health sciences; optimization; machine learning and data science |
| Carl Bergstrom | Flatten the curve, misinformation |
| Shan Liu | Healthcare modeling and decision analytics; optimization applied to medical decision making, public health policy and resource allocation problems; technology assessment and evaluation, cost-effectiveness analysis |
| Adrian Raftery | Interpreting COVID-19 data, understanding different COVID-19 data sources and statistics |
| Chirag Shah | Misinformation and search engines, search and recommender systems, machine learning, artificial intelligence |
| Emma Spiro | Misinformation in social media, including disaster and crisis events; information flow; social behavior and social interaction; collective sensemaking; attention dynamics; role of emergency responders; and computational and data science methods. |
| Kate Starbird | Intentional spread of misinformation (disinformation) during crisis events, across social media and through the wider information ecosystem |
| Ka-Kit Tung | Modeling COVID-19 outbreaks, projecting public health impact, comparing different types of modeling approaches |
| Jevin West | Misinformation, evolution of science, the models and science used to predict the spread of COVID-19 |
Historical precedent
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Steven Goodreau | Pandemics in history, stigmatizing groups during pandemics |
| Margaret O’Mara | Historical precedent |
Environment
Click on an expert’s name to view their contact information, recent media mentions and more.
| Name | Expertise |
|---|---|
| Nives Dolšak | Common resources, environment and decision-making |
| Peter Kahn | Impact of nature on health, particularly mental health. Strategies for experiencing benefits of nature while indoors, at home, on walks |
| Meade Krosby | Implications for behavioral change, resilience, and adaptation more generally; Implications for wildlife — e.g. whether COVID-19 is leading wildlife to come back to certain areas, and what that means |
| Joshua Lawler | Nature’s health benefits, and the effectiveness of programs and policies designed to take advantage of those benefits |
| Aseem Prakash | Environmental politics |
| Christopher Schell | Urban wildlife |
| Amy Snover | COVID-19’s effects on climate & climate-relevant activities; Comparing actions to address COVID-19 vs. climate change |
| Kristi Straus | Sustainability, personal choices, sustainable habits |
| Dr. Pooja Tandon | Strategies for play and exercise for children during COVID-19 restrictions |
| Kathleen Wolf | Nature’s benefits for human health, especially on mental health and well-being |
We will be expanding this list on an ongoing basis. If you’re a UW expert and you want to be added to this list, please contact the public information officer for your unit.
Recent COVID-19 news coverage Full experts directory
