Ciara Weets, M.S. Global Infectious Disease 2024

PhD in Epidemiology Candidate, University of California, Berkeley – Chancellor’s Fellowship Awardee

Ciara Weets earned her M.S. in Global Infectious Disease (GLID) in 2024. While her chosen concentration was Science Policy, she credits the program’s flexibility to explore the nexus of policy and modeling that created opportunities to incorporate skills learned in both fields toward her position with Georgetown’s Center for Global Health Science and Security (CGHSS) led by GLID faculty member, Dr. Rebecca Katz. As a Junior Scientist at CGHSS, she led their data integration, analysis, modeling and visualization portfolio, creating policy analysis methodologies, and publishing and presenting their findings in journals and at conferences.

She also continued to work with GLID faculty member, Dr. Shweta Bansal, to model spatial clustering of vaccine refusal behavior in the United States. In the fall of 2026, she will begin a PhD in Epidemiology at UC Berkeley as a Chancellor’s Fellowship awardee that will advance her research during her program. Pursuing the program’s Science Policy concentration while also being able to pursue her interest in modeling built foundational skills and relationships that opened pivotal doors while surrounded by a supportive community.