Summary
Heather Kerwin is a doctoral student in public health at the University of Nevada, Reno, specializing in epidemiology. Her research interests include adverse childhood experiences and positive childhood experiences and how those impact early adolescent substance use and sexual health.
She has 15 years of experience in data analytics, infectious disease epidemiology, program management and community planning for local and state government.
Through the doctoral program, Kerwin hopes to advance primary prevention strategies by translating causal inference and longitudinal data analysis into actionable practices that help community leaders and public health stakeholders make informed decisions.
Faculty mentor
Selected awards and honors
- Nevada Women’s Fund – 2023 Women of Achievement Honoree
- de Beaumont Foundation – 2021 Cohort 40 Under 40 Recipient
- Nevada Public Health Association – 2020 Public Health Program of the Year – Washoe County Health District, Epidemiology Program
Selected publications
- Gorzalski, A. J., Kerwin, H., Verma, S., Hess, D. C., Sevinsky, J., Libuit, K., Vlasova-St. Louis, I., Siao, D., Siao, L., Buñuel, D., Van Hooser, S., & Pandori, M. W. (2023). Rapid lineage assignment of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 cases through automated library preparation, sequencing, and bioinformatic analysis. The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, 25(4), 191–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoldx.2023.01.005
- Pandori, M., Gorzalski, A. J., Louis, I. S., Siao, D., Siao, L., Bunuel, D., Van Hooser, S., Hess, D. C., Kerwin, H., Sevinsky, J., Libuit, K., & Verma, S. (2022). Rapid lineage assignment and phylogenetic tracking of SARS-CoV-2 cases through automated library preparation, sequencing and bioinformatic analysis. Chem Inform, 6(6). https://doi.org/10.36648/IPMM.6.6.001
- Kerwin, H., Briggs, R., Nair-Desai, S., Gorzalski, A., Pandori, M., Friedhoff, S., & Tsai, T. C. (2021). An analysis of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine breakthrough infections and associated clinical outcomes [Preprint]. medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.09.09.21262448
- Hatchett, B. J., Benmarhnia, T., Guirguis, K., VanderMilen, K., Gershunov, A., Kerwin, H., et al. (2021). Mobility data to aid assessment of human responses to extreme environmental conditions. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(10). https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00261-8
- Gorzalski, A. J., Hartley, P., Laverdure, C., Kerwin, H., Tillett, R., Verma, S., Rossetto, C., Morzunov, S., Van Hooser, S., & Pandori, M. W. (2020). Characteristics of viral specimens collected from asymptomatic and fatal cases of COVID-19. Journal of Biomedical Research, 34(6), 431–436. https://doi.org/10.7555/JBR.34.20200110
- Tillett, R. L., Sevinsky, J. R., Hartley, P. D., Kerwin, H., Crawford, N., Gorzalski, A., Laverdure, C., Verma, S. C., Rossetto, C. C., Jackson, D., Farrell, M. J., Van Hooser, S., & Pandori, M. (2021). Genomic evidence for reinfection with SARS-CoV-2: A case study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 21(1), 52–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30764-7
Education
- MPH, Epidemiology, University of Nevada, Reno, 2011
- B.S., Public Health, University of Nevada, Reno, 2009