Director of Educational Innovation

Contact

 George Tower 708
  Contact
  • Velma K. Lopez LinkedIn
  • Velma K. Lopez Google Scholar

Education

  • Ph.D. Epidemiology , University of Michigan
  • M.P.H. International Health and Development , Tulane University
  • B.S. Microbiology , Ohio University

Expertise

  • Health Systems

About

Dr. Velma Lopez is an epidemiologist and data scientist, with specific skills in analysis of complex, systems-level data and primary data collection in low-resource settings. In ISyE, she designs and directs learning opportunities that allow students to apply statistical and mathematical modeling to real-world systemic challenges. She also focuses on integrating emerging educational technologies, including AI-assisted learning, simulation tools, and data visualization platforms, into the classroom to enhance student engagement and learning. 

Velma’s approaches to research, teaching, and learning are shaped by 15 years of work experience in public health, including humanitarian emergency response, applied public health research, academic research, and project management and implementation. She has worked as a survey manager and biomarker specialist for the Demographic and Health Surveys project, funded by USAID, and as a scientist at the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Velma joined the CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the Center for Global Health and went on to work in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. At CDC, she worked with stakeholders to leverage advanced analyses to improve population wellbeing that had direct impact on outbreak response and global health operations. 

Research

Velma is an applied infectious disease researcher specializing in public health intervention design, analysis, and optimization within complex socio-technical systems. Her long-term goal is to advance real-time decision-support systems that remain robust despite incomplete information and dynamically changing conditions. Throughout her career, her central research question has been, How can we design dynamic, data-limited, behavior-aware systems that remain robust, equitable, and operationally useful in real time? She approaches answering this question through four main research domains:

  1. modeling dynamic systems under uncertainty; 
  2. human behavior within systems; 
  3. equity, fairness, and structural dynamics; and 
  4. translational systems. 

Within these domains, Velma develops rigorous, generalizable methods for dynamic, partially observed systems, combining probabilistic modeling, Bayesian inference, stochastic control, and machine learning to address uncertainty, data sparsity, and structural heterogeneity. 

Teaching

Velma's goal as an educator is to help students develop not only technical proficiency but also the judgment, creativity, and ethical awareness required to design systems that are robust, equitable, and societally meaningful. To meet this goal, her approach to teaching is based on three core implementation principles: 

  1. active learning; 

  2. deep conceptual understanding through systems thinking; and 

  3. adapting to student needs.

Representative Publications

  • Lopez, V.K., Healy, J.M., Li, R, Vuong, N., Paul, P., Magill, S.S., Slayton R.B., Van Dyke M.E. Integrating health equity in healthcare modeling to improve decision making: Considerations for modelers and healthcare epidemiologists. (2025). Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.* 
  • Lopez, V.K., Bastos, LS, Codeço, C., Johansson, MA. A roadmap to account for reporting delays for public health situational awareness: a case study with COVID-19 and dengue in the United States jurisdictions. (2024). MedRXiv. 
  • Lopez, V. K., Cramer, E. Y., Pagano, R., Drake, J. M., O’Dea, E. B., Adee, M., ... & Johansson, M. A. (2024). Challenges of COVID-19 Case Forecasting in the US, 2020–2021. PLoS computational biology, 20(5).
  • Lopez, V. K., Nika, A., Blanton, C., Talley, L., & Garfield, R. (2023). What Makes a Humanitarian Crisis Severe and Can Severity be Quantified? Assessment of the Global Severity Crisis Index. Globalization and Health. 19(1), 7. 
  • Cramer, E. Y., Ray, E. L., Lopez, V. K., Bracher, J., Brennen, A., Rivadeneira, A. J. C., ... & Keegan, L. T. (2022). Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the US. (2022). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(15).
  • Lopez, V.K., West, B.T., Clarke, P.J., Eisenberg, J.N. (2019). Latent variable modeling to develop a robust proxy for sensitive behaviors: application to latrine use behavior and its association with sanitation access in a Middle-Income Country. BMC Public Health, 19(1), 90.
  • Lopez, V.K., Berrocal, V.J., Corozo Angulo, B., Ram, P.K., Trostle, J., Eisenberg, J.N. (2019). Determinants of Latrine Use Behavior: The Psychosocial Proxies of Individual-level Defecation Practices in Rural Coastal Ecuador. The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 100(3), 733-741. 

*Accepted, but withdrawn in compliance with Executive Order 14151