Bio: Lone Simonsen, PhD, MS

Dr. Simonsen is an expert in infectious disease epidemiology, mathematical modeling, methodology, seasonality and burden of influenza and rotavirus, molecular epidemiology and pandemic influenza. Over the last decades she has developed novel tools and analysis methodology while working as an epidemiologist at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), at the NIH. She has received multiple awards for her work from the Department of Health and Human Services, NIAID and CDC. Dr. Simonsen has also shared her expertise on influenza and malaria with the Gates and Google Foundations, served as an expert advisor to the CDC and World Health Organization (WHO) Advisory Committees on Immunization Practices. She has published about 100 papers, book chapters. letters and commentaries, and presented at numerous international and national meetings.
Dr. Simonsen’s research is conducted in the context of collaborations with colleagues at the NIH and around the world and focuses on science-to-policy issues, studies of historic influenza pandemics, surveillance methodology and vaccine benefits and adverse events.  Dr. Simonsen is currently a research professor at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services and the president of SAGE Analytica, and vice president for SDI Health. She earned her Ph.D. in population genetics at University of Massachusetts in 1991, and subsequently trained and worked at the CDC (Epidemic Intelligence Service, EIS). During 1997-2000 she worked as a technical expert at the World Health Organization in Geneva, then returned to the US to take a position as an epidemiologist at the NIH. During her recent tenure as a senior epidemiologist in National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) she advised the institute leadership on influenza, SARS and vaccine issues, helped create the NIAID influenza genomics sequencing project, and assisted the WHO with global response to SARS and pandemic influenza.