Published 10 October 2014
Mark S. Roberts, MD, MPP, has assumed directorship of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory. Dr. Roberts is professor and chair of the Health Policy and Management Department at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh. He holds secondary appointments in Medicine, Industrial Engineering, and Clinical and Translational Science. A practicing general internist, he has conducted research in decision analysis and the mathematical modeling of disease for over 25 years, and has expertise in cost effectiveness analysis, mathematical optimization and simulation, and the measurement and inclusion of patient preferences into decision problems. Dr. Roberts has used decision analysis to examine clinical, costs, policy and allocation questions in liver transplantation, vaccination strategies, operative interventions, and the use of many medications. His recent research has concentrated in the use of mathematical methods from operations research and management science, including Markov Decision Processes, Simulation and integer programming to problems in health care.
On July 1, 2014, John Grefenstette, PhD, stepped down as Director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory. Dr. Grefenstette served as the inaugural director since coming to the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health on July 1, 2009. Dr. Grefenstette continues his work on the National Center of Excellence for Models of Infectious Diseases Agent Study (MIDAS), funded by NIH/NIGMS, and the Vaccine Modeling Initiative (VMI), funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Grefenstette is a mathematician and computer scientist who has been instrumental in the development of the agent-based modeling platforms used by the PHDL to evaluate the impact of polices designed to mitigate the threat from epidemics and pandemics.