Director
Elena N. Naumova, PhD

Elena Naumova is the Director of Tufts University Inititiative for the Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Disease (InForMID) and Associate Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine. She is a biostatistician interested in the development of analytical tools for time series and longitudinal data analysis applied to disease surveillance, exposure assessment, and studies of growth. Her research activities span a broad range of research programs in infectious disease, environmental epidemiology, molecular biology and immunogenetics, nutrition and growth.

Co-Director
Nina H. Fefferman, PhD

Nina Fefferman is the Co-Director of Tufts University Inititiative for the Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Disease (InForMID), a Research Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and a Visiting Research Associate at the Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS). She is a mathematical modeler interested in the application of mathematical models to investigating the interface among ecology, animal behavior and epidemiology. Her research activities span a broad range of research programs in infectious disease epidemiology, biodefense and societal organization, animal behavior, conservation ecology, social network theory, evolutionary sociobiology and complex systems.

Founding Member
Ian MacNeill

Dr. MacNeill is an honorary member of the Statistical Society of Canada. He is a fellow of ASA and Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and a Senior Member of the American Society for Quality Control. His research work focuses on time series, econometrics and the change-point problem, with extensive applications ranging from problems in environmental science to the forecasting of health care needs. In 1995, he was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Medal of the American Statistical Association on Statistics and the Environment.

The Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University honors Dr. MacNeill's contribution to the field by giving an annual award to students demonstrating outstanding quantitative skills.

Consultant
Yuri Naumov, MD, PhD

Dr. Naumov is a faculty member at the Department of Pathology, UMass Medical School. He has done extensive research in the field of Immunogenetics and is currently studying the mechanisms that define how cells are recruited for Ag elimination and how T cell memory compartment is created and maintained.

Consultant
Jeffrey Griffiths

Dr. Griffiths is an Associate Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and has extensive experience in international health work. Currently, he is conducting a study in Kenya concerning the biology and epidemiology of cryptosporidiosis and another project in Ecuador based on the use of micronutrients and vitamins in improving the immune systems of malnourished children.

Consultant
Janet Forrester

Dr. Forrester is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.  Her current research is focused on infectious disease - nutrition interactions in HIV/hepatitis C co-infected drug abusers.  She has conducted global health research on the epidemiology and transmission dynamics of parasitic infection in children and parasite-nutrition interactions. .

Project Coordinator
Manisha Pandita

Manisha Pandita is the Project Coordinator at InForMID. In this role; she supports the activities of grant projects, manages the research staff, prepares project reports, organizes investigators meetings and act as a liaison to co-investigators at various sites. She is also currently working on the research study for Pneumonia and influenza in cognitively impaired elderly.

Data Analyst
Jyotsna Jagai

Jyotsna Jagai is a PhD student in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Her research interests include epidemiology of waterborne disease, the effect of climate on rates of waterborne and food borne diseases, and the interaction between water policy and food security.

Data Analyst
Julia Wenger

Julia is currently working on her MPH in Epidemiology/Biostatistics. Her primary research interests include the statistical analysis and modeling of seasonality of influenza and other respiratory infections along with the impact of social phenomena on these seasonal trends.    

Data Analyst
Anna Kosheleva

Anna is the data analyst. She comes from Russia and enjoys photography and indoor gardening.

Research Assistant
Steven Cohen

Steven is a Doctor of Public Health graduated from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His primary research interests include the demography of population aging in the US and its implications for health and health care utilization.

Research Assistant
Kenneth Chui

Kenneth is a PhD candidate at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. His research interests include relationship between extreme weather events and gastrointestinal diseases; application of GIS in nutrition research; and efficient graphical presentation.

Research Assistant
Siobhan Mor

Siobhan is a trained veterinarian and a PhD candidate at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. Her research interests include the epidemiology of tropical, emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases as well as global health.

Data Analyst
Sara Parisi

Sara graduated from Tufts University with an MPH and an MS in nutrition, and has worked as a data analyst with InForMID for the past year. Her current research investigates factors influencing influenza outcomes in the elderly, including geographic accessibility to healthcare and presence of comorbidities.

Visiting Scholar
Rajiv Sakar

Rajiv is a Ph.D. candidate at Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. He has a M.Sc. in Epidemiology from the same institution. His research interests include epidemiology of waterborne infections, water and health, and use of GIS in studying transmission of waterborne infections. He is currently at Tufts University undergoing training in infectious disease epidemiology, modeling and statistical techniques.

Research Assistant
Ekaterina Naumova

Currently working on a project entitled “Why do holidays make us sick?” as a preliminary study into the effects of globalization of food production and distribution, emergent salmonella, and the consequent relationship to public health.