About the author

Dr. Paula Moraga (https://paula-moraga.github.io/) is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Previously, she held academic positions at Lancaster University, Harvard School of Public Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Queensland University of Technology, and University of Bath.

Dr. Moraga has worked in statistical research for over a decade, with a strong focus on spatial epidemiology and modeling. She has developed innovative statistical methods and open-source software for disease surveillance, and her work has directly informed strategic policy in reducing disease burden in several countries. Past projects include the development of modeling architectures to understand the spatio-temporal patterns and identify targets for intervention of malaria in Africa, leptospirosis in Brazil, and cancer in Australia. Dr. Moraga has worked on the development of a number of R packages for disease modeling, detection of clusters, and travel-related spread of disease, and is the author of SpatialEpiApp, a Shiny web application for the analysis of spatial and spatio-temporal disease data.

Dr. Moraga has taught statistics and spatial epidemiology courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels at universities in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, and has been invited to deliver training courses on disease mapping and R at international workshops. She has also created online educational materials that impact learning on a large scale, and has published extensively on statistical methodology, software, and health and environmental applications.

Dr. Moraga received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Valencia, Spain, and her Master’s in Biostatistics from Harvard University, USA.