Epidemiology & Biostatistics Assistant Professor Amy K. Winter has received the 2026 Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award.
Named in honor of the University of Georgia’s 18th president, this award recognizes outstanding accomplishment and evidence of potential future success in scholarship, creative work or research by an early career faculty member in the sciences. Being selected by the review committee reflects Winter’s outstanding research accomplishments and impact in her field of study.
2026 Fred C. Davison Early Career Scholar Award recipient Amy K. Winter
“Early-career stages can feel both exciting and uncertain, so this recognition means a lot,” Winter said. “It affirms that the work my collaborators, students and I are doing is valued by the university. I see it not just as a personal honor, but as a reflection of the mentors, colleagues and trainees who make this work possible.”
Winter earned her her BA in International Relations & History at the University of Georgia.
Before earning her PhD in Demography at Princeton University and her MPH in Global Health at Emory University.
“Coming from a global health background and already interested in infectious diseases, I was introduced to infectious disease modeling during my PhD. I realized that infectious disease modeling brought together everything I enjoyed: systems thinking, quantitative methods and meaningful population-level questions,” Winter said. “It allows me to study complex patterns of disease transmission while contributing to real-world efforts to improve global health. That mix of interesting patterns and public health impact is what really pulled me into the field.”
Winter takes an interdisciplinary approach to tackling policy-relevant questions around how infectious diseases spread and can better be controlled. Her work focuses on understanding transmission dynamics of vaccine-preventable diseases in human populations, particularly in measles and rubella, which is “very timely,” according to Epidemiology & BiostatisticsDepartment Head and Ernest Corn Professor Ye Shen.
“At the core of my research is the goal of producing work that’s not only methodologically rigorous, but also directly useful for public health decision-making,” Winter said.
Winter shared that her time as UGA has “been shaped by” collaboration within her college and through the Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases.
Throughout her time at UGA, Winter’s highlights include receiving a Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases (CEID) seed grant, collaborating with Mandev Gill in Statistics, joining Justin Bahl’s Center for Applied Pathogen Epidemiology and Outbreak Response and publishing “Leveraging Systems-of-Systems Analysis to Strengthen Epidemic Intelligence for Preparedness and Response” with John Drake and Pej Rohani. She also received two Gates Foundation grants as a principal investigator and presented modeling work on rubella vaccine introduction and measles–rubella elimination timelines to WHO advisory groups and regional offices.
“Impressively, her research is changing the WHO policy, and it is going to impact millions of people in countries that benefit from the changes of the vaccination policy,” Shen said. “I think her major contribution so far to the scientific field has been true perspective.”
The Research Awards Banquet was hosted by the Office of Research on April 2, closing out the University of Georgia’s 2026 Honors Week.
“This award motivates me to continue building my research program that uses infectious disease modeling to improve global health,” Winter said. “I’m here because of mentors who invested in me and opened doors, and I am committed to doing that for others. Going forward, I hope to continue building a collaborative and globally engaged research program that improves global health outcomes while training the next generation of epidemiologists and modelers.”
