Lauren Ancel Meyers

E-mail:
laurenmeyers@mail.utexas.edu
Office:
PAT 656
(512) 471-4950
Lab:
(512) 471-8685
Fax:
(512) 471-3878

Education

• 1991-1996 B.A. Harvard University, Mathematics and Philosophy
• 1996-2000 Ph.D. Stanford University, Biology

Research Interests

Dr. Meyers conducts research in two general areas. The first is mathematical epidemiology. Over the last five years, she has been developing new network-based mathematical approaches for predicting the spread of infectious diseases and collaborating with public health officials in the US and Canada to apply these methods to designing optimal control measures. Her second research area is theoretical evolutionary biology, with a particular focus on (a) the impact of environmental heterogeneity on evolutionary dynamics and (b) the structure of complex fitness landscapes. 

Instruction

Associate Director: Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation (SSC)
Faculty Advisor: Computational biology degree option of the Biology B.S. degree plan.

Lecture courses 2008-2009:
    * Spring 2009 – Introduction to Computational Biology (Biology 337) 

Awards/Honors

• 2003-2009 External Faculty Member, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico
• 2006-2009 Fellow, Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Texas at Austin
• 2005 University of Texas, College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award
• 2004 MIT Technology Review TR100: Top 100 Global Innovators Under Age 35
• 2000-2002 Santa Fe Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, Santa Fe Institute
• 2000-2002 National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biological Informatics
• 2000 Samuel Karlin Prize for Ph.D. Thesis in Mathematical Biology

Publications

• Volz, E., L.A. Meyers (2008) Static network approximations and epidemic thresholds for a simple SIR model in dynamic contact networks. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. doi:10.1098/rsif.2008.0218.


• Cowperthwaite, M.C., E.P. Economo, W.R. Harcombe, E.L. Miller, L.A. Meyers (2008) A Simple Rule Shapes Phenotype Evolution. PLOS Computational Biology 4: e1000110.


• Volz, E., L.A. Meyers (2007) Susceptible–infected–recovered epidemics in dynamic contact networks. Proceedings of the Royal Society B doi:10.1098/rspb.2007.1159.


• Bansal, S., B.T. Grenfell, L.A. Meyers (2007) When individual behavior matters: homogeneous and network models in epidemiology. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 4: 879-891


• Cowperthwaite, M., L.A. Meyers (2007) How mutational networks shape evolution: Lessons from RNA models. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 38: 203-230.


• Meyers, L.A. (2007) Contact network epidemiology: Bond percolation applied to infectious disease prediction and control. Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 44: 63-86.


• Bansal, S., B. Pourbohloul, L.A. Meyers (2006) A comparative analysis of influenza vaccination programs. PLoS Medicine 3: e387.


• Cowperthwaite, M., J.J. Bull, L.A. Meyers (2006) From bad to good: Fitness reversals and the ascent of deleterious mutations. PLoS Computational Biology 2: e141;


• Meyers, L.A., M.E.J. Newman, B. Pourbohloul (2006) Predicting epidemics on directed contact networks. Journal of Theoretical Biology 240: 400-418.


• Ferrari, M.J., S. Bansal, L.A. Meyers, O.N. Bjørnstad (2006) Network frailty and the geometry of herd immunity. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 273: 2743-2748.


• Meyers, L.A., D.A. Levin (2006) On the abundance of polyploids in flowering plants. Evolution 60: 1198-1206


• Meyers, L.A., F. Ancel, M. Lachmann (2005) Evolution of genetic potential. PLoS Comp Bio 1: 236-243.


• Bull, J.J., L.A. Meyers, M. Lachmann (2005) Quasispecies made simple. PLoS Comp Bio 1: 450-460.


• Pourbohloul, B., L.A. Meyers, Krajden, M., Patrick, D.M., Brunham, R.C. (2005) A quantitative comparison of control strategies for respiratory-borne pathogens. Emerging Infectious Diseases 11: 1249-1256.


• Cowperthwaite, M., J.J. Bull, L.A. Meyers (2005) Distributions of beneficial fitness effects in RNA. Genetics 170: 1449-1457.


• Meyers, L.A., B. Pourbohloul, M.E.J. Newman, D.M. Skowronski, R.C. Brunham (2005) Network theory and SARS: Predicting outbreak diversity. Journal of Theoretical Biology 232: 71-81.


• Meyers, L.A., J.F. Lee, M. Cowperthwaite, A.D. Ellington (2004) The robustness of naturally- and artificially-selected nucleic acid secondary structures. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 58, 681-691.


• Lee, J.F., J.R. Hesselberth, L.A. Meyers, and A.D. Ellington (2004) Aptamer database. Nucleic Acids Research, 32. D95-D100.


• De Visser, J.A.G.M., J. Hermisson, G.P. Wagner, L.A. Meyers, et al. (2003) Perspective: Evolution and Detection of Genetic Robustness. Evolution 57, 1959-1972.


• Meyers, L.A., B.R. Levin, A.R. Richardson and I. Stojilkovic (2003) Epidemiology, hypermutation, within-host evolution and the virulence of Neisseria meningitidis. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences 270, 1667-1677


• Meyers, L.A., M.E.J. Newman, M. Martin, S. Schrag (2003) Applying network theory to epidemics: Control measures for Mycoplasma pneumoniae outbreaks. Emerging Infectious Diseases 9, 204-210.

For additional publications and some pdf files of articles see the Meyers lab web page.