Senior’s research reinvents flu forecasting

When Monelli Esfandiary, ‘25, enrolled at Lehigh, the College of Health offered just two majors. Biostatistics was not yet one of them. 

During her first year, when the college offered majors only in population health and community and global health, Esfandiary took a required biostatistics course for her population health track. 

She said from that moment on, she completely fell in love with the subject.

Driven by that passion for biostatistics, the senior is now working to reinvent how flu seasons are predicted by developing accurate forecasts for upcoming outbreaks.

Esfandiary said currently, public health officials are able to develop flu predictions only one week at a time. She said her research uses flu case data from different hemispheres to create longer-term seasonal predictions about the upcoming year’s flu cases. 

She also said because the Southern Hemisphere’s flu season occurs earlier in the year than the Northern Hemisphere’s, her work builds a model using data from the Southern Hemisphere to forecast the next two flu seasons in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Thomas McAndrew, a professor in the College of Health, taught Esfandiary’s biostatistics course when she was a first-year. 

Since the course had such an impact on her, Esfandiary said she asked McAndrew if they could do research together. The two now work closely on flu research and are aiming to have a paper published on the topic. 

McAndrew said Esfandiary was a special first-year student, because she was a hard worker who was interested in doing research and scientific projects at an early stage in her career. 

“What stood out about Monelli was that she was a very determined student,” he said. “She was unafraid to ask questions.”

Esfandiary said together, the two used their knowledge of biostatistics and population health to create weekly flu forecasts for Pennsylvania Department of Health officials and to interpret the impact of COVID-19 on flu case numbers and trends.

She said public health officials may not have the same data background as biostaticians. 

She and her team created a metapopulation model and met with officials biweekly to explain what the model revealed, which she said was integral to communicating the results. She said the officials could then put preventative measures in place in the counties where the model predicted flu outbreaks would occur.

Esfandiary said she later discussed this research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, and a conference at Harvard University. She said the Computational Uncertainty Lab, where this research is conducted and analyzed, provides influenza forecasts for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware at the county level, from local data. 

McAndrew said students who present at these events are typically graduate students, noting how Esfandiary’s presentations as an undergraduate student were particularly impressive. 

In addition to her research work, Esfandiary is also concluding her term as the president of the College of Health Student Advisory Council, a group of students within the college that works with faculty and administration to improve the college through student perspectives.  

She said the council was absent during the spring 2024 semester, so when she was first elected president, it was left to be reconstructed in her hands. 

Esfandiary said being the problem solver and oriented thinker she is, and knowing that the council had so many opportunities to make meaningful changes in the College of Health, she had to work to make the space valuable again. 

She spent the summer of 2024 rebuilding the organization after helping to elect a new executive board. She said the council now has multiple committees, 40 members and has been much more successful. 

Ellie Priest, ‘27, is a population health major and a member of the Student Advisory Council. 

She said Esfandiary is a strong leader and has brought many ideas to fruition that have improved the council.

“She is a really good leader, and she always has really good stuff for us to do as a council that can really make change within the College of Health,” Priest said. 

Priest also said Esfandiary has been an excellent liaison between College of Health students and the administration and professors. She said by allowing students to be open about their problems and concerns with the college, Esfandiary has been able to provide them with solutions and communicate concerns to faculty. 

Following graduation, Esfandiary plans to attend the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California in the fall. There, she’ll pursue a masters of public health in biostatistics and epidemiology.

Esfandiary said she has always believed attending a school like Lehigh is an immense privilege.

As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, she said she’s happy her hard work has paid off and hopes her parents are proud of everything she has accomplished. 

“I didn’t want to just go to class and get a degree,” she said. “I wanted to use all the resources I knew were available to me.” 

McAndrew said students at Lehigh who want to be extremely successful in their college careers should look to Esfandiary as an example. 

“I think her legacy will be showing students what you can do in a short period of time, how much impact you can make, progress you can make in your career, in just four years,” he said.