Samuel Jenness, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Epidemiology
Rollins School of Public Health
Emory University
I am an infectious disease epidemiologist specializing in mathematical and computational approaches for infectious disease dynamics through the framework of network science.
As an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health of Emory University, I lead the EpiModel Research Lab and also collaborate on many projects in both methods and applications for infectious disease epidemiology. I teach courses in infectious disease epidemiology and modeling methods, and I am the faculty director of our Infectious Disease Epidemiology Certificate program.
Research Interests
My methodological research focuses on the development of an open-source software platform for epidemic modeling, EpiModel, which allows users to build, simulate, and analyze complex mechanistic models for infectious disease systems. EpiModel provides a powerful toolkit for modeling dynamic contact networks that are fundamental for representing transmission of diseases requiring direct contact. EpiModel has been used in over 80 scientific publications, by our group and infectious disease modeling researchers around the world.
My applied research focuses on the epidemiology of sexually transmitted
and respiratory infectious diseases. I am interested in how we can use mechanistic modeling and
network science frameworks to understand the drivers of these diseases, and to design and
evaluate effective prevention strategies. Recent applications have used models to investigate the
co-circulation of multiple pathogens within the same population where the risk for acquiring one
disease depends on the epidemic dynamics of other infections transmitted along the same contact
network.
More broadly, the work of my EpiModel Research Lab involves addressing these questions with research in the following domains:
- Infectious disease epidemiology
- Mechanistic & mathematical modeling of infectious disease
- Network science
- Survey research design and analysis
- Computational epidemiology & scientific software development
News
2022-10-06
New paper published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases: The Role of HIV Partner Services in the Modern Biomedical HIV Prevention Era: A Network Modeling Study.
2022-10-01
New paper led by Jeb Jones published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Effect of Screening and Treatment for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia on HIV Incidence Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in the United States: A Modeling Analysis.
2022-09-23
Received the notice of award from NIH/NIAID for a new collaborative project led by PI Julia Marcus at Harvard Medical School: Cabotegravir PrEP: Actionable Robust Evidence for Translation into Practice (R01 AI174862). This study will evaluate the real-world use, clinical outcomes, and optimal investment of resources for long-acting injectable PrEP, informing implementation strategies to maximize impact.
2022-09-14
New paper led by Christina Chandra published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Comparing Sexual Network Mean Active Degree Measurement Metrics among Men who have Sex with Men.
2022-07-26
New paper led by Laura Mann published in AIDS: Correlations between community-level HIV preexposure prophylaxis coverage and individual-level sexual behaviors among US men who have sex with men.
2022-07-19
New paper led by Kevin Maloney published in Epidemiology: Sexual mixing by HIV status and pre-exposure prophylaxis use among men who have sex with men: addressing information bias.
2022-07-01
I was elected to serve as a standing member of the NIH Study Section Population and Public Health Approaches to HIV/AIDS over the next four years.
2022-05-01
Received the notice of award from NIH/NIDA for a new collaborative project led by PIs Patrick Janulis at Northwestern University: Leveraging data synthesis to identify optimal and robust strategies for HIV elimination among substance-using MSM (R01 DA055502). This study will feature network-based epidemic modeling with EpiModel to investigate the role of drug and alcohol use among MSM in driving ongoing HIV transmission.
2022-05-01
New paper led by Margo Wheatley with Eva Enns published in JAIDS: Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions to Improve HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Initiation, Adherence, and Persistence Among Men Who Have Sex With Men.
2022-03-01
Received the notice of award from NIH/NIAID for a new collaborative project led by MPIs Ben Lopman and Saad Omer: Investigation of COVID-19 Disease Parameters for Transmission Models in Low-Resource Settings (R01 AI161399). We will use EpiModel to understand the within-household and community-level transmission networks of SARS-CoV-2 in low and middle income countries.
2022-03-01
Received the notice of award from NIH/NIMH for our new project: STI Response and Recommendations Under PrEP (STIRRUP) (R01 MH128130). This project uses big data analysis, epidemic modeling, and economic decision analytic methods to understand and address the interaction of HIV PrEP scale up and incidence of bacterial STIs.
2021-12-15
New paper in Epidemics: Modeling Dynamic Network Strategies for SARS-CoV-2 Control on a Cruise Ship.
2021-12-01
New paper led by Adrien Le Guillou published in JAIDS: Population Impact and Efficiency of Improvements to HIV PrEP Under Conditions of High ART Coverage Among San Francisco Men Who Have Sex With Men.
2021-12-01
New paper led by Steve Goodreau published in AIDS & Behavior: A Behavioral Cascade of HIV Seroadaptation Among US Men Who Have Sex with Men in the Era of PrEP and U = U.
2021-10-05
New paper led by Christina Chandra published in Clinical Infectious Diseases: Gaps in Screening of Sexually Transmitted Infections among Men Who Have Sex with Men during PrEP Care in the United States.
2021-10-24
New paper led by Kevin Weiss published in the Journal of the International AIDS Society: Association between HIV PrEP indications and use in a national sexual network study of US men who have sex with men.
2021-09-01
New paper led by Emeli Anderson published in Epidemiology: HIV and Sexually Transmitted Infection Epidemic Potential of Networks of Men Who Have Sex With Men in Two Cities.
2021-07-15
New paper with Eva Enns published in AIDS: A decision analytics model to optimize investment in interventions targeting the HIV preexposure prophylaxis cascade of care.
2021-07-01
New paper led by Patrick Janulis published in JAIDS: Temporal Variation in One-Time Partnership Rates Among Young Men Who Have Sex With Men and Transgender Women.
2021-03-29
New paper published in Journal of Infectious Diseases: Projected HIV and Bacterial Sexually Transmitted Infection Incidence Following COVID-19-Related Sexual Distancing and Clinical Service Interruption.
2021-03-15
New paper led by Ben Lopman published in Scientific Reports: A modeling study to inform screening and testing interventions for the control of SARS-CoV-2 on university campuses. We also developed an associated interactive Shiny app.
2021-01-04
New paper led by Kevin Maloney published in Journal of Infectious Diseases: Projected Impact of Concurrently Available Long-Acting Injectable and Daily-Oral HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis.
2020-11-15
New paper published in AIDS: Modeling an Integrated HIV Prevention and Care Continuum to Achieve the Ending the HIV Epidemic Goals.
2020-07-01
New paper led by Kristin Nelson published in the American Journal of Epidemiology: Modeling Missing Cases and Transmission Links in Networks of Extensively Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
2020-03-01
New paper led by Kevin Weiss published in JAIDS: Estimated Number of Men Who Have Sex With Men With Indications for HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis in a National Sexual Network Study.
2020-03-01
New paper led by Stephen Uong published in Epidemiology: Assessing the Validity of Sexual Network Degree among Men Who Have Sex with Men using Prospective Cohort Data.
2020-01-24
New paper led by Kevin Weiss published in Epidemics: Egocentric Sexual Networks of Men Who Have Sex with Men in the United States: Results from the ARTnet Study.
2019-11-01
New paper led by Kevin Weiss published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Epidemiological Impact of Expedited Partner Therapy for Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Modeling Study.
2019-10-25
New paper led by Kevin Weiss published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases: Optimizing Coverage versus Frequency for Sexually Transmitted Infection Screening of Men Who Have Sex with Men.
2019-06-07
New paper led by Jeb Jones published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Proportion of Incident HIV Cases among Men Who Have Sex with Men Attributable to Gonorrhea and Chlamydia: A Modeling Analysis.
2018-10-11
New paper published in American Journal of Epidemiology: Addressing Gaps in HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis Care to Reduce Racial Disparities in HIV Incidence in the United States.
2018-07-29
New paper published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases: Bacterial STI Screening Rates by Symptomatic Status among Men Who Have Sex with Men in the United States: A Hierarchical Bayesian Analysis.
2018-07-12
Received new major research funding (my first R01 funding as a PI) from NIH/NIAID (R01 AI138783) for a project to develop and extend the EpiModel platform to address the next generation of important HIV/STI prevention science questions.
2018-06-18
New commentary published in Clinical Infectious Diseases: Moving Forward With Treatment of Gonorrhea for Users of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Preexposure Prophylaxis Given the Threat of Antimicrobial Resistance.
2018-04-20
New paper published in the Journal of Statistical Software: EpiModel: An R Package for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Disease over Networks.
2017-09-01
New paper published in Clinical Infectious Diseases: Incidence of Gonorrhea and Chlamydia Following Human Immunodeficiency Virus Preexposure Prophylaxis Among Men Who Have Sex With Men: A Modeling Study.
2017-02-15
Received our first NIH funding as a PI (R21 MH112449) for a new study to collect a national sample of network-based data on MSM for local modeling of HIV/STI transmission dynamics and opportunities for prevention.
2017-01-06
New paper published in PLoS One: Individual HIV Risk versus Population Impact of Risk Compensation after HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis Initiation among Men Who Have Sex with Men.
2016-12-01
Journal of Infectious Disease issue with our HIV PrEP model was published in the December 15 issue and featured artwork from our study on the cover of the issue!
2016-09-01
Started a new affiliation with the Northwestern Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology (CePIM) as an Early Stage Investigator, with funding to conduct network and implementation science research over the next 5 years.
2016-07-14
New paper published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases: Impact of the Centers for Disease Control's HIV Preexposure Prophylaxis Guidelines for Men Who Have Sex with Men in the United States.
2016-06-13
New paper published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections: Effectiveness of combination packages for HIV-1 prevention in sub-Saharan Africa depends on partnership network structure: a mathematical modelling study.