Pandemic Center

Jorge Ledesma

Epidemiology Doctoral Candidate. Jorge arrived at Brown as part of the Fall 2020 cohort and successfully defended his dissertation in April of 2024.
jorge_ledesma@brown.edu

Recent News

News from the Pandemic Center

Pandemic Preparedness Matters: Interview with Jorge Ledesma

The Pandemic Center sat down with Mr. Ledesma to dive into the results of his recent paper on pandemic preparedness, its impact on mortality rates during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what it can tell decision makers.
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Nuclear Threat Initiative

New Study Shows Robust Pandemic Preparedness Strongly Linked to Lower COVID-19 Mortality Rates

The vast majority of countries that entered the COVID-19 pandemic with strong capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to disease threats achieved lower pandemic mortality rates than less prepared nations, according to a major new study published today in BMJ Global Health. The analysis was led by researchers from the Brown University School of Public Health's Pandemic Center, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).
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Jorge Ledesma is a fourth-year epidemiology doctoral candidate interested in infectious disease modeling and pandemic preparedness. Prior to enrolling in the PhD program, he was a post-baccalaureate fellow at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) where he was the primary modeler for tuberculosis burden estimation in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. Since coming to Brown, he has continued tuberculosis modeling work while also producing a series of studies aimed at evaluating strategies for preventing widespread COVID-19 transmission. He will leverage this work in his dissertation where he is currently assessing the contributions of pandemic preparedness capacities in supporting effective national COVID-19 responses.