Meet the Team

Lauren Ancel Meyers is a professor of biology and statistics at the University of Texas at Austin and the founding director of the UT COVID-19 Modeling Consortium. She was trained at Harvard and Stanford and is internationally recognized for her work in network epidemiology and machine learning for viral threats, including COVID-19, pandemic influenza, Dengue, Zika, HIV, and Ebola.

She has built pandemic decision-support tools for the CDC, BARDA, DTRA, and state and local agencies. During COVID-19, she provided global leadership through her role as a member of the World Health Organization's COVID-19 Modeling Network and the U.S. COVID-19 Forecast Hub.

Lauren was named a top 100 global innovator by MIT Technology Review and is the recipient of the Joseph Lieberman Award for her contributions to public health.

Prior to joining CAPTRS, she spent 12 years as a scientist at the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, where she focused on the creation of advanced decision support systems for defense and homeland security applications. Her work focuses on the development of solutions to identified technical and scientific capability gaps in the defense and security domains. Her work bridges multiple disciplines—game science, cognitive and knowledge engineering, human-system integration, and operational analysis—to deliver innovative solutions that address critical capability gaps in defense, security and crisis preparedness. She has also served as an adjunct professor in Computer Games and Simulation at the University of Genoa, Italy

A recognized leader in the gaming field, Francesca has played a key role in NATO’s Wargaming Initiatives and serves on the board of the Serious Games Society. She has provided advisory support to a range of national and international organizations, including the Italian Ministry of Defense, the NATO Science and Technology Organization, and the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency. Her contributions have been recognized with the NATO 2020 STO Scientific Achievement Awards and the 2020 NATO System Analysis & Studies Panel Excellence Award.

Francesca holds a Bachelor Degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering, a Master Degree in Water and Soil Management Engineering and a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence, specializing in Interactive and Cognitive Environments

Georgia Thomsen has extensive experience in launching and scaling organizations. She played a key role in launching The Acton School of Business and growing its MBA program. She has served as Chief Operations Officer at Capital Factory and Chief Programs Officer at Notley.

Georgia has significant experience as a fundraiser for philanthropic organizations including March of Dimes, Philanthropitch, DivInc, and Habitat for Humanity. Her background in fundraising and organizational development has been instrumental in building sustainable business models.

She holds a BA in Eastern European History from Texas Tech University and an MA in Russian History from Texas State University.