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Irena Papst, PhD
I’m a scientist specializing in infectious disease modelling with highly-transferable skills in research, data science, software development, training, and scientific communication.
(she/elle)
Positions
Scientist
Modelling Hub, Science and Policy Integration Branch
Public Health Agency of Canada
Current - May 2022
- Create and simulate models of infectious disease spread to support Agency priorities
- Analyze and communicate research results
- Develop scientific software and modelling infrastructure
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
McMaster University
Current - Jul 2022
- Collaborate on research projects in applied mathematics with members of the Department
- Help supervise and mentor students undertaking research
Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Mathematics & Statistics
McMaster University
May 2022 - Sep 2021
- Modelling and analysing infectious disease dynamics with Drs. David J.D. Earn,
Benjamin M. Bolker, and Jonathan Dushoff - Projects includes forecasting COVID-19 case reports for Ontario, Canada and developing software for simulating infectious disease spread
Education
PhD, Applied Mathematics
Center for Applied Mathematics
Cornell University
Aug 2021 - Sep 2015
- Thesis: Mathematical modeling of infectious disease dynamics: from recurrence to emergence, advised by Dr. Steven Strogatz
- Minors: Computational Science and Engineering, Mathematics
- Courses: Advanced Topic Modeling, Applied Dynamical Systems, Applied Stochastic Processes, Asymptotics and Perturbation Methods, Matrix Computations, Numerical Analysis and Differential Equations, Stochastic Processes, Theory of Statistics
- GPA: 4.12 out of 4.3
Selected publications
Mathematical modelling for pandemic preparedness in Canada: Learning from COVID-19
Ogden NH, Acheson ES, Brown K, Champredon D, Colijn C, Diener A, Dushoff J, Earn DJD, Gabriele-Rivet V, Gangbe M, Guillouzic S, Hennessy D, Hongoh V, Hurford A, Kanary L, Li M, Ng V, Otto SP, Papst I, Rees EE, Tuite A, MacLeod MR, Murall CL, Waddell L, Wasfi R, Wolfson M
N/A
Oct 2024
Canada Communicable Disease Report
10.14745/ccdr.v50i10a03
ern: An R package to estimate the effective reproduction number using clinical and wastewater surveillance data
Champredon D, Papst I, Yusuf W
N/A
Jun 2024
PLOS ONE
10.1371/journal.pone.0305550
Age-dependence of healthcare interventions for COVID-19 in Ontario, Canada
Papst I, Li M, Champredon D, Bolker BM, Dushoff J, Earn DJD
N/A
Apr 2021
BMC Public Health
10.1186/s12889-021-10611-4
I strive to produce clear and engaging publications accompanied by organized public code repositories so that all of my published work is reproducible.
Selected software
I develop open-source scientific software that is useful, user-friendly and well-documented.
EPACmodel
Author, maintainer
N/A
N/A
- An R package to use documented and versionned iterations of the Early Pandemic Age-structured Compartmental model, available on GitHub
ern
Author
N/A
N/A
- An R package to estimate the Effective Reproduction Number using clinical and wastewater surveillance data, available on GitHub
macpan2
Contributor
N/A
N/A
- An R package to build fast and flexible compartmental models, available on GitHub
I am committed to open science and try to make all materials that I develop freely-available, including my talk slides.
Selected teaching
My extensive experience teaching spans topics across mathematics, statistics, and computer science, in large and small classroom settings, in-person and online.
Short Course on Forecasting for Decision-Making
Canadian Ecological Forecasting Initiative
Fields Institute
Jul 2023 - Jul 2023
- One of four instructors for this short course with roughly 50 participants
- Developed openly-available teaching materials, including a COVID-19 forecasting case study, a git/GitHub primer, and an introduction to modelling lecture
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Last updated on 08 Feb 2026.