Research Interests
Research Topics
Computational Biology, Host-Pathogen Interactions
Disease Research Interests
Infectious Diseases
Research Description
My scientific interest lies at the intersection of biological and epidemiological mechanisms that govern the population dynamics of infectious diseases. My group uses mathematical and statistical approaches to investigate the effects of pathogen diversity, host heterogeneity, and environmental factors on the transmission and control of human pathogens. We are particularly interested in the following aims:
- Understand the emergence and maintenance of pathogen diversity and its impacts on disease control. We especially focus on how reassortment and immune responses affect rotavirus dynamics in endemic settings and interfere with public health interventions.
- Disentangle the effects of sociodemographic factors on viral disease transmission. By examining how age, race/ethnicity, income, and/or past exposures impact the transmission of different pathogens, we can better understand how population heterogeneity influences disease dynamics.
- Understand within-host dynamics of viral infections and their implications for disease transmission and severity. We aim to characterize individual-level heterogeneity in infectiousness across different respiratory infections to further investigate viral shedding and clearance dynamics.
- Quantify the impact of temperature and specific humidity on the seasonality and long-term dynamics of acute infections. By fitting long time series of disease incidence to mechanistic models of transmission, we can measure the interannual effect of environmental drivers on the seasonality of climate-sensitive diseases.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Recent Publications
Kostandova, N., Schluth, C., Arambepola, R., Atuhaire, F., Bérubé, S., Chin, T., Cleary, E., Cortes-Azuero, O., García-Carreras, B., Grantz, K. H., Hitchings, M. D. T., Huang, A. T., Kishore, N., Lai, S., Larsen, S. L., Loisate, S., Martinez, P., Meredith, H. R., Purbey, R., ... Wesolowski, A. (2024). A systematic review of using population-level human mobility data to understand SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Nature communications, 15(1), Article 10504. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-54895-7
Mahmud, A. S., Bhattacharjee, J., Baker, R. E., & Martinez, P. P. (2024). Alarming trends in dengue incidence and mortality in Bangladesh. The Journal of infectious diseases, 229(1), 4-6. Article jiad529. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiad529
Larsen, S. L., Shin, I., Joseph, J., West, H., Anorga, R., Mena, G. E., Mahmud, A. S., & Martinez, P. P. (2023). Quantifying the impact of SARS-CoV-2 temporal vaccination trends and disparities on disease control. Science Advances, 9(31), Article eadh9920. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adh9920
Mahmud, A. S., Martinez, P. P., & Baker, R. E. (2023). The impact of current and future climates on spatiotemporal dynamics of influenza in a tropical setting. PNAS Nexus, 2(9), Article pgad307. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgad307
Ke, R., Martinez, P. P., Smith, R. L., Gibson, L. L., Mirza, A., Conte, M., Gallagher, N., Luo, C. H., Jarrett, J., Zhou, R., Conte, A., Liu, T., Farjo, M., Walden, K. K. O., Rendon, G., Fields, C. J., Wang, L., Fredrickson, R., Edmonson, D. C., ... Brooke, C. B. (2022). Daily longitudinal sampling of SARS-CoV-2 infection reveals substantial heterogeneity in infectiousness. Nature Microbiology, 7(5), 640-652. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.12.21260208, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-022-01105-z
