Biography

Dr. Chowell-Puente is an assistant professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.  His theme of interest in the school is Biological, Social and Cultural Dimensions of Human Health and he specializes in Mathematical Epidemiology.

He received his Ph.D in Biometry from Cornell university in 2005 and an Engineering degree from Universidad de Colima, Mexico in 2001. He was awarded National Prize for Youth by the Government of Mexico in the year 2002. Recently, he was selected by the financial magazine ‘Poder y Negocios’ as one of 100 professors who were born in Mexico and are now teaching and making waves in the United States.

Chowell's work lies at the interface of epidemiology, mathematics, modeling, and statistics. For the last few years, his emphasis has been on the connection of models to data to estimate epidemiological parameters and test public health policy. More recently, his work has been focused on characterizing the transmission dynamics of seasonal and pandemic influenza including the estimation of transmissibility of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic in several regions of the world. In their latest work spatial patterns of transmissibility and mortality in England and Wales during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic were studied. They are currently working on the evaluation of potential vaccination strategies against pandemic influenza in Mexico.

His current research projects include Culture, Health and Environment in Urban South Phoenix and Influenza in Mexico. His CV is available here.