Paul Edlefsen

Paul Edlefsen, PhD is a Principal Staff Scientist leading the Edlefsen Group within the Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Epidemiology Program of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. His interdisciplinary work bridges statistics, computer science, and molecular biology to advance infectious disease vaccine research through innovative statistical and computational methods.

Dr. Edlefsen's educational background includes:

• PhD in Statistics from Harvard University (2009)
• AM in Statistics from Harvard University (2005)
• BA in Computer Science from Wesleyan University (2000)

Dr. Edlefsen specializes in developing statistical frameworks for bioinformatics applications, particularly in genome sequence analysis. His research spans HIV vaccine trials, pathogen comparative genome analysis, HIV-1 evolution modeling, and immune correlates analysis across multiple diseases including HIV, TB, malaria, dengue, zika, and COVID-19. The Edlefsen Group contributes throughout the research process from study design to reproducible data analysis, with emphasis on overcoming communication barriers across scientific disciplines.

Dr. Edlefsen offers workshops on statistics, sieve analysis, and profile HMMs, seeking students with strong computational and statistical skills. His multidisciplinary team includes biostatisticians, skilled programmers proficient in Python/R/Perl/Java/C++, and biologists with cross-disciplinary data science expertise. The group serves as statistical core for major networks including United World Arbovirus Research Network (UWARN) and Cascade IMPAc-TB network, maintaining commitment to reproducible research through custom software development.