Research Bio

Maya L. Petersen, MD, PhD is Professor of Biostatistics and  Epidemiology (UC Berkeley) and of Computational Precision Health (UCSF and UC Berkeley), Berkeley Director of the UCSF-UC Berkeley Joint Program in Computational Precision Health, and co-Director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Targeted Machine Learning and Causal Inference. Dr. Petersen’s methodological research sits at the intersection of machine learning/AI, statistical inference, and causal inference, with emphasis on complex  observational and experimental data, individualized treatment strategies, and study designs that adapt to incoming data. Her applied research focuses on community and global health, with an emphasis on applying machine learning and cutting-edge statistical methods to treatment and prevention of HIV, hypertension and other health conditions in rural East Africa. 

Dr. Petersen holds an AB from Stanford University in Human Biology, a PhD from UC Berkeley  in Biostatistics, and an MD from UCSF. She has more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has led multiple NIH and foundation grants,  including the Sustainable East Africa Research in Community Health consortium.  Dr. Petersen has received multiple awards, including a Howard  Hughes Medical Institute Pre-doctoral award, a Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development award, and a national teaching award from the American Statistical Association. In 2021, Mayor London  Breed named June 18 “Maya Petersen Day” in San Francisco in acknowledgement of her  services to the COVID-19 pandemic response.

Research Expertise and Interest

causal inference, precision health, Health AI, targeted learning, HIV, global health, pandemics