Statistics/Evolution/Computational Epidemiology/Population Dynamics

I am interested in using statistical methods to study the interplay of evolutionary and epidemiological processes of infectious diseases; my research questions range from deriving basic insights into the dynamics of pathogen evolution in heterogeneous populations to applied questions regarding infectious disease surveillance and intervention strategies.

Current Research

A framework for evaluating Zika emergence risk

During an outbreak, a key challenge is knowing when and where to initiate interventions based on potentially sparse and biased case reports. In the midst of the initial ZIKV wave of spring 2016, we designed a framework to estimate epidemic risk as a function of reported cases across ecologically and demographic regions.

Molecular sampling protocols for infectious disease surveillance

During an epidemic molecular data can simultaneously provide actionable epidemiological and evolutionary data. I am interested in exploring optimal sampling protocols of sequence samples for various public health objectives, and understanding how the evolutionary (e.g. mutation rate) and epidemiological aspects (e.g. R0) of the pathogen changes the strategy.

Assessing vaccination impacts through molecular and case surveillance

Molecular data can complement incidence data evaluating a vaccine's impact on disease burden. I am interested in integrating network modeling with evolutionary, epidemiological, and behavioral data to evaluate how contact network structure in conjunction with a vaccination strategy impacts epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics.

Other Interests

Publications and CV

Castro, L.A., Fox, S.J., Chen, X., Liu, K., Bellan, S.E., Dimitrov, N.B., Galvani, A.P., Meyers, L.A. (2016) Real-time Zika risk assessment in the United States. bioRxiv. doi:10.1101/056648.

Castro, L.A., Peterson, J.K., Saldana, A., Perea, M.Y., Calzada, J.E., Pineda, V., Dobson, A.P.& Gottdenker, N.L. (2014). Flight behavior and performance of Rhodnius pallescens (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) on a tethered flight mill. Journal of medical entomology, 51(5), 1010-1018.

Generous, N., Margevicius, K.J., Taylor-McCabe, K.J., Brown, M., Daniel, W.B., Castro, L., Hengartner, A., & Deshpande, A. (2014) Selecting essential information-A multi-criteria decision analysis. PLoS one, 9(1), e86601.

Margevicius, K.J., Generous, N., Taylor-McCabe, K.J., Brown, M., Daniel, W.B., Castro, L. , Hengartner, A., Deshpande, A. (2014). Advancing a framework to enable characterization and evaluation of data streams useful for biosurveillance PLoS one, 9(1), e83730.

My full Google Scholar and CV

Contact Me

Send me an email: lacastro[at]utexas.edu