Laura Forsberg White, PhD, joined the Department of Biostatistics in 2006 after completing her PhD in Biostatistics at Harvard University.   She is interested in statistical methods for public health surveillance systems, including spatial statistics and time series, as well as the development of novel methodologies for the detection of disease outbreaks.  Methods for these systems must have the capability to detect aberrant events rapidly, making timeliness a key issue and challenge.  Dr. White’s research interests also include monitoring and rapidly estimating key parameters that quantify the spread of an infectious disease epidemic, for instance Avian Influenza, a bioterrorist event or new, emerging disease.  She is interested in interfacing traditional epidemiological methods for characterizing and predicting infectious disease outbreaks and new statistical techniques to estimate and quantify these outbreaks.  Additionally she serves as a statistical consultant to the BUMC Section on Infectious Disease and Slone Epidemiology Center, and continues to collaborate with researchers in Harvard’s School of Public Health as part of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics.  At BUSPH, she teaches Quantitative Methods in Public Health Surveillance (BS 735) and Topics in Outbreak Investigations (EP 800).