Lyndon James

Lyndon James

PhD Candidate in Health Policy (G6, Decision Sciences)

 

Lyndon James is a physician and decision scientist using mathematical modeling to improve infectious disease policy. In his dissertation research, Lyndon uses mathematical modeling to identify cost-effective strategies to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis, and employs distributional cost-effectiveness analysis to explicitly account for health equity. He is also conducting empirical work to identify the causal effects of specific treatment regimens for TB, and has collaborated with clinical and academic partners in Moldova and elsewhere on this work.  Lyndon was delighted to receive NIH T32 training grant funding for 2021-23 following a competitive application process, and was a finalist for the Lee B. Lusted student prize at the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM) Conference, 2022.

In previous work, Lyndon reviewed the benefits and pitfalls of mathematical modeling in the COVID-19 pandemic, studied how COVID-19 changed the threshold for intervention for abdominal aortic aneurysms, and investigated whether explicitly accounting for health equity would change the cost-effectiveness of a potential gene therapy for individuals living with sickle cell disease. Lyndon’s peer-reviewed work has appeared in Medical Decision Making, the Annals of Internal Medicine, PharmacoEconomics, and other journals.

 

Prior to the PhD program, Lyndon graduated with a first-class honours BSc in Medical Sciences and Physiology from University College London in 2010. In 2013 he completed his medical degree, also at University College London. He worked as a doctor in the UK’s National Health Service for three years, gaining postgraduate clinical experience in internal and emergency medicine. Lyndon completed his MPH at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health in 2017, and was awarded the Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship for this program.

 

Lyndon’s teaching philosophy focuses on breaking down complex quantitative methods and clinical problems into digestible chunks with patience and respect. He taught and mentored dozens of medical students in the UK, and has served as a teaching fellow 15 times while at Harvard, receiving a Teaching Award from the School of Public Health in 2018, and a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2020.

 

After the PhD program, Lyndon plans to continue forging a career as a physician-scientist in infectious diseases, with a focus on antimicrobial resistance and health equity. He is proud to have established the LGBTQ+ student support group in the PhD program (please reach out!) as well as the LGBTQ+ affinity group at SMDM. Looking ahead, Lyndon aspires to lead a diverse, collaborative research and clinical team based on the principles of excellence, integrity, kindness, and curiosity of self and the world.

 

 

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