Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Research Interests
infectious disease dynamics; scenario projection; COVID-19; RSV; multi-model ensembles; human behavior modeling
Experiences & Accomplishments
Sara is an applied mathematician, whose work is focused at the intersection of mathematical modeling of infectious diseases and public health decision making. She develops and maintains models used for scenario projection and forecasting of respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, Influenza and RSV. She is a member of the coordination team of the US Scenario Modeling Hub and is involved in providing training in applied modeling for public health.
Her work has also included investigating the evolutionary dynamics of different populations - including theoretical analyses of within- and between-host dynamics and the cultural evolution of social behaviors and reproductive strategies. She has experience in developing mathematical models in the fields of population genetics, evolutionary biology, and anthropology.
Select Publications
Loo, S. L., Howerton, E., Contamin, L., Smith, C. P., Borchering, R. K., Mullany, L. C., ... & Truelove, S. (2024). The US COVID-19 and Influenza Scenario Modeling Hubs: delivering long-term projections to guide policy. Epidemics, 46, 100738.
Lemaitre, J. C., Loo, S. L., Kaminsky, J., Lee, E. C., McKee, C., Smith, C., ... & Truelove, S. (2024). flepiMoP: The evolution of a flexible infectious disease modeling pipeline during the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemics, 47, 100753.
Jung, S. M., Loo, S. L., Howerton, E., Contamin, L., Smith, C. P., Carcelén, E. C., ... & Lessler, J. (2024). Potential impact of annual vaccination with reformulated COVID-19 vaccines: lessons from the US COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub. Plos Medicine, 21(4), e1004387.
Xiong, X., Loo, S. L., Zhang, L., & Tanaka, M. M. (2021). Modelling the effect of birth and feeding modes on the development of human gut microbiota. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 288(1942), 20201810.
Loo, S. L., Hawkes, K., & Kim, P. S. (2017). Evolution of male strategies with sex-ratio–dependent pay-offs: connecting pair bonds with grandmothering. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 372(1729), 20170041.