Omayra Ortega

Office

Advising Area

• Statistics Advisor

Biography

Using the tools from statistics, mathematics, public health and epidemiology, Dr. Ortega tackles the emerging health issues. She is deeply committed to broadening the participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM and mentoring students through the challenges of academia.

Education

University of Iowa, PhD Applied Mathematics & Computational Sciences (2008), MPH Master's Degree in Public Health with a concentraion in Biostatistics (2005), MS Applied Mathematics & Computational Sciences (2005) Pomona College, BA Pure Mathematics (2001), BA Music Performance (2001)

Academic Interests

Mathematical Epidemiology, Differential Equations, Stochastic Processes, Math & Stats Education

Selected Publications & Presentations

Agusto, F., Erovenko, I.V., Fulk, A., Abu-Saymeh, Q., Romero-Alvarez D., Ponce, J., Sindi, S., Ortega, O., Saint Onge, J.M.,Townsend Peterson, A. “To isolate or not to isolate: The impact of changing behavior on COVID-19 transmission” Submitted to BMC Public Health Journal. Preprint https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.30.20184804

F Agusto, A Goldberg, O Ortega, J Ponce ,S. Zaytseva, S Sindi and S Blower. “How do interventions impact malaria dynamics between neighboring countries? A case study with Botswana and Zimbabwe.” In Using Mathematics to Understand Biological Complexity, Springer, 2020. (ISBN: 978-3-030-57128-3) https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030571283

President, National Association of Mathematicians (NAM), a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote excellence in the mathematical sciences and promote the mathematical development of all underrepresented minorities. In this capacity, Dr. Ortega serves as the official spokesperson of NAM and the chair of the Executive Committee. Her term began in 2021 and will continue until February 28, 2024. She previously served as the editor of the NAM Newsletter and chaired the Publicity and Publications Committee from 2018-2021.