Transformational Gift Fuels Breakthrough Infectious Disease Research at Lehigh’s College of Health

A gift from award-winning scientist James Wassil ’99G ’05G is opening doors for groundbreaking research in infectious disease forecasting at the College of Health (COH). The new Wassil Research Fund will provide resources for staffing, equipment and other needs in support of research aimed at developing a predictive model for infectious disease outbreaks in long-term care facilities.  

The research will be co-led by Thomas McAndrew, associate professor in the department of Biostatistics and Health Data Science, a member of the Center for Catastrophe Modeling and Resilience, and PI of the Computational Uncertainty Lab; and Gabrielle String, assistant professor with joint appointments in the COH’s Department of Population Health and the P.C. Rossin College of Engineering and Applied Science’s department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. This project combines McAndrew’s expertise in computational epidemiology and infectious disease forecasting with String’s expertise in environmental health engineering and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)-related pathogens. By uniting these disciplines, the team aims to create a new tool with a real-world impact on community health—a core part of the COH’s mission.

“I am honored to support Lehigh’s College of Health as it pioneers new frontiers in infectious disease research,” said Wassil, chief operating office and executive vice president of Vaxcyte, Inc. “The development of advanced infectious disease forecasting models has the potential to transform how we protect the most vulnerable populations. By equipping long-term care facilities with tools to anticipate and respond to outbreaks, Lehigh is not only improving health outcomes for residents but also strengthening the broader public health ecosystem.”

Wassil has dedicated over three decades to developing and commercializing vaccines intended to prevent infectious diseases and has held leadership positions in the vaccine divisions of Pfizer, Novartis and Merck. He is a member of the COH’s Dean’s Advisory Council and annually hosts Lehigh students during the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity & Innovation’s LehighSiliconValley program. He also served as the 2025 Graduate Commencement and Doctoral Hooding Ceremony Speaker.

The overarching goal of the research, McAndrew explained, is to understand how a harmful pathogen spreads in a long-term care facility. They will first collect “information about how these pathogens moved around in the past, and based on historical data, identify statistical patterns that can describe or characterize how those pathogens have changed over time in a long-term care facility,” McAndrew said. Another goal is to identify measurable signals that would alert staff  members in a long-term care facility if numbers of harmful pathogens are about to increase.

“Can you build a dynamic systems model that jointly specifies how that pathogen changes over time due to different mixing behaviors between different residents, staff and clinicians, and can it be calibrated to these signals that we see in historical data and wastewater?” said McAndrew. “If we’re successful, a typical implementation would be an outbreak dashboard for healthcare staff at a long-term care facility. For example, they’d be able to see, what does norovirus look like in the past five weeks? Where do we think it will go in the next five weeks? Should the long-term care facility consider intervening to prevent a potential outbreak?”

String emphasized that the research will be guided by partners, focusing on “what the long-term care facility is concerned about and what data they’re already collecting.” Lehigh Valley Health Network has signed on as an advisor to help inform some of the clinical aspects of their work, in terms of identifying the most important pathogens or meaningful data to collect.

String and McAndrew intend to mentor undergraduate and graduate students in the project and plan to recruit a PhD candidate or postdoctoral researcher who could make this a central focus of their research. Both faculty have successfully led and mentored student projects related to public health forecasting, epidemic modeling and environmental interventions.

In addition to creating a new predictive model specific to a long-term care facility, the project will create meaningful community partnerships between Lehigh and such facilities and hospitals. According to String, “building connections between the College of Health and entities in the Lehigh Valley or elsewhere will help to create internship and other experiential learning opportunities for students.” 

McAndrew and String envision that further outcomes would include curriculum enhancement based on their findings, conference presentations, publications, and a stronger STEM workforce through students trained in epidemic modeling and public health engineering.

“When you ask who might be empowered by these scientific achievements, the answer is largely in public health,” McAndrew explained. “Clinicians and staff in long-term care facilities and hospitals could all see direct impact. This work has the potential to improve the quality of life for residents in long-term care facilities, as well as individuals in hospitals or any congregate setting. By building connections—backed by a gift from Jim Wassil, a prominent scientist in the field—Professor String and I can increase the probability that we will succeed in these impacts.”

Lehigh was recently designated as an R1 research institution—the only one in the Lehigh Valley and one of just seven in Pennsylvania. This recognition of the highest level of research activity underscores the university’s role as a regional hub for high-impact, interdisciplinary research, exemplified by this initiative.