Mary “Emmy” Helander’s dissertation research probes health outcomes, casual effects, and geospatial/temporal patterns formed by events from large, national datasets such as the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS.org) and CDC vital statistics. Her investigations use methods from computational epidemiology, mathematical modeling, and causal inference to seek improved understanding of human health inequities. Mary’s broadest research interests are in understanding health disparities and social determinants.

Mary received a B.A. in computer science and mathematics from SUNY Potsdam. She previously earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in industrial engineering & operations research from Syracuse University and the University at Buffalo, respectively.

Before returning to graduate study, Mary was a senior research scientist and master inventor at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center. Concurrent with her quest of the multidisciplinary Ph.D. in Social Science, she has adapted her data science skills to study societal issues and is pursuing an MPH.  

EMS operations and datasets, data science, pattern recognition, network algorithms, mathematical modeling, geospatial statistics.