Laura Gomez Merchan is a Graduate Coach with InGenius Prep based in California. She is an experienced epidemiologist and researcher with diverse experience in infectious diseases, chronic disease, control and prevention, immunology, molecular biology, and health disparities. She received her bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in Molecular Cell Biology, focusing on Immunology. She also completed a master’s in science in epidemiology at Columbia University.
She worked in a team-based project with the Harris Lab at the University of California Berkeley as well as the Ministry of Health of Nicaragua in estimating the prevalence of ZIKV infections among a pediatric cohort study during the 2016 epidemic. She has healthcare experience conducting an epidemiological analysis on COVID-19 ARDS patients’ health outcomes from the Columbia Irving Medical Center. Additionally, she has experience working at Kaiser Permanente in the Epidemiological division of the Research and Evaluation department.
As a Graduate Coach, Laura leverages her methodology and research skills, cultivated through her work experience with the NYC DOHMH as a Problem Resolution Specialist, to help students coordinate their own research projects. This experience involved conducting epidemiological analysis on COVID-19 molecular testing data across 9 DOHMH clinics to determine effective ways to engage communities for messaging and outreach.
