Eric L. (IN A NUTSHELL)

Eric graduated from Yale College in 2022 with a degree in Cognitive Science and will start his PhD at the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society in Fall 2023.

He is passionate about using computation to understand and solve messy and complex problems in the real world, and more specifically how human social behaviors can inform public health outcomes. His passion for science started by studying very different communities—of bacteria in the human gut. For two summers in high school, he worked as a research assistant at the George Mason University Microbiome Analysis Center, hunched over the lab bench with pipette in hand, attempting to map out the complex interactions of gut microorganisms collected from patients battling liver disease. Using what he learned, he later conducted a personal project to understand how cancer in the gastrointestinal tract can change the communities of bacteria in the gut. In college, he embarked on a new journey to understand how humans—and not only bacteria—behave in groups, and how this behavior might influence public health interventions. He helped launch the fourth wave of data collection for a population of over 30,000 people across 176 villages in rural Copán, Honduras, aiming to study the effects of network-based targeting strategies in improving maternal and neonatal health in developing settings. In the future, he hopes to engineer safer and more effective systems in the realms of social networks, applied artificial intelligence, and health.

Outside of his studies, Eric enjoys developing video games from scratch, writing songs, and biking with his friends. Eric is so excited to work with his mentees as a new member of the Curious Cardinals community!