Dr. Lauren Charles, a data scientist and team lead at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and joint appointee at WSU School for Global Health, is a veterinarian with a multidisciplinary Data Scientist PhD background. Combined with training in mathematics, biology, environmental science, plant pathology, and bioinformatics, her interests lie in identifying connections between living things and the environments they share through quantifiable data to promote biodefense, public health and safety, environmental awareness, and understanding of infectious disease processes. Her past research has focused on wildlife population health, epidemiology, and ecology and the interface between wildlife, humans, domestic, and agricultural animals. Currently, her research focuses on biosurveillance and disease forecasting through the development of state-of-the-art data analytic pipelines, which have been used for a variety of domains and use cases. Other contributions include developing decision-making support tools for chemical and biological defense. Through the use of data science and engineering, Dr. Charles enables integration of heterogeneous data sources into complex models for situational awareness, understanding of disease processes, and prediction focusing on One Health and national security solutions
Affiliate and Adjunct Appointments
- Adjunct, Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture, WSU
- Joint appointment, Data Scientist and Team Lead, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Education
- PhD, North Carolina State University, 2014
- DVM, North Carolina State University, 2009
- MS, North Carolina State University, 2005
- BA, Boston College, 2000
Certifications
- Washington State Veterinary License
Research Interest
- One Health
- Data Science
- Biosurveillance
- Disease Forecasting
Publications
Professional Service
- Member, International Working Group on Strengthening the Culture of Biosafety and Biosecurity, 2022-present*
- Member, One Health Expert Network serving the One Health High-Level Expert Panel (WHO, FAO, OIE, UNEP), 2021 – present
- Member, Senator Gillibrand One Health Security Working Group, 2020- present
- Member, Pathogens Editorial Review Board, 2020 – present
Honors and Awards
- Invited Speaker, Managing Climate-Driven Zoonotic Risk: An Interagency Workshop, 2022
- Panelist, Epidemiology and Modeling at DOE Office of Science Pandemic Preparedness Roundtable, 2022
- Guest Speaker, Washington State Legislature S&T Caucus, 2022
- Plenary Speaker, Multi-Agency Artificial Intelligence Medical Discovery (AI-MED) Workshop, 2022
- Fellow, Mitigating Zoonotic Threats Scialog, Research Corporation for Science Advancement & USDA, 2021