Gail E. Potter, PhD

Deputy Branch Chief, Clinical Trials Research & Statistics Branch 

Mathematical Statistician, Biostatistics Research Branch

National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases

National Institutes of Health

I am the Deputy Branch Chief of NIAID's Clinical Trials Research and Statistics Branch (CTRS) and a Mathematical Statistician in NIAID's Biostatistics Research Branch.  Prior to joining NIH, I was a principal biostatistician at the Emmes Company for 5 years and an Assistant Professor of Statistics at California Polytechnic State University for three years.  I completed my PhD in statistics at the University of Washington and a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Fred Hutch in Seattle. 

I am a clinical trialist who applies and develops statistical methodology to improve global health.  I have provided statistical leadership to clinical trials of interventions to prevent and treat dengue, malaria, mpox, COVID-19,  opioid addiction, autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome (ALPS), and other conditions.  I oversee the development and training of statistical quality processes in CTRS and organize scientific training workshops.

I am a returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Guinea, Nepal).  My experience in Peace Corps continues to inform my passionate perspective on social justice.


Selected Publications and Presentations

Tyler Bonnett, Gail E. Potter, and Lori E. Dodd.  Examining the bias-efficiency tradeoff from incorporation of nonconcurrent controls in platform trials: A simulation study example from the adaptive COVID-19 treatment trial.  Clinical Trials (2025): 17407745251313928. 

Gail E. Potter and Michael A. Proschan. "Does Remdesivir Lower COVID‐19 Mortality? A Subgroup Analysis of Hospitalized Adults Receiving Supplemental Oxygen." Statistics in Medicine (2024). 


Catharine I. Paules*, Jing Wang*, Kay M. Tomashek, Tyler Bonnett, Kanal Singh, Vincent C. Marconi, Richard T. Davey Jr., David C. Lye, Lori E. Dodd, Otto O. Yang, Constance A. Benson, MD, Gregory A. Deye, Sarah B. Doernberg, MD, Noreen A. Hynes, Robert Grossberg, Cameron R. Wolfe,Seema U. Nayak, William R. Short, Jocelyn Voell, Gail E. Potter**, and Rekha R. Rapaka**   A Risk Profile Using Simple Hematologic Parameters to Assess Benefits From Baricitinib in Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19: A Post Hoc Analysis of the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial-2.  Annals of Internal Medicine (2024).  * Contributed equally.  ** Contributed equally.   


Gail E. Potter, Viviane Callier, Biraj Shrestha, Sudhaunshu Joshi, Ankit Dwivedi, Joana C. Silva, Matthew B. Laurens, Dean A. Follmann, and Gregory A. Deye. Can incorporating genotyping data into efficacy estimators improve efficiency of early phase malaria vaccine trials?  Malaria Journal 22, no. 1 (2023): 383. 


Jane M. Liebschutz, Geetha A. Subramaniam, Rebecca Stone, Noa Appleton, Lillian Gelberg, Travis I. Lovejoy, Amanda M. Bunting, Charles M. Cleland, Karen E. Lasser, Donna Beers, Catherine Abrams, Jennifer McCormack, Gail E. Potter, Ashley Case, Leslie Revoredo, Eve M. Jelstrom, Margaret M. Kline, Li-Tzy Wu & Jennifer McNeely, Subthreshold opioid use disorder prevention (STOP) trial: a cluster randomized clinical trial: study design and methods. Addiction science & clinical practice. 2023 Nov 18;18(1):70. 


Gail E. Potter, Tyler Bonnett, Kevin Rubenstein, David A. Lindholm, Rekha R. Rapaka, Sarah B. Doernberg, David C. Lye, Richard A. Mularski, Noreen A. Hynes, Susan Kline, Catharine I. Paules, Cameron R. Wolfe, Maria G. Frank, Nadine G. Rouphael, Gregory A. Deye, Daniel A. Sweeney, Rhonda E. Colombo, Richard T. Davey, Jr., Aneesh K. Mehta, Jennifer A. Whitaker, Jose G. Castro, Alpesh N. Amin, Christopher J. Colombo, Corri Levine, Mamta K. Jain, Ryan C. Maves, Vincent C. Marconi, Robert Grossberg, Sameh Hozayen, Timothy H. Burgess, Robert L. Atmar, Anuradha Ganesan, Carlos A. Gomez, Constance A. Benson, Diego Lopez de Castilla, Neera Ahuja, Sarah L. George, Seema U. Nayak, Stuart H. Cohen, Tahaniyat Lalani, William R. Short, Nathaniel Erdmann, Kay M. Tomashek* and Pablo Tebas*, Temporal improvements in COVID-19 outcomes for hospitalized adults: a post-hoc observational study of remdesivir arm participants in the Adaptive COVID-19 Treatment Trial, The Annals of Internal Medicine, 2022.  *These authors contributed equally.

 

Sodiomon B. Sirima, Alphonse Ouédraogo, Alfred B. Tiono, Jean M. Kaboré, Edith C. Bougouma, Maurice S. Ouattara, Désiré Kargougou, Amidou Diarra, Noelie Henry, Issa N. Ouédraogo, Peter F. Billingsley, Anita Manoj, Yonas Abebe, Natasha KC, Adam Reuben, Thomas L. Richie, Eric R. James, Sudhaunshu Joshi, Biraj Shrestha, Kathy Strauss,Kirsten E. Lyke, Christopher V. Plowe, Gail E. Potter, Catherine Cox, Walter Jones, B. Kim Lee Sim, Stephen L. Hoffman, Matthew B. Laurens, A Randomized Controlled Trial Showing Safety and Efficacy of a Whole Sporozoite Vaccine against Endemic Malaria, Science Translational Medicine, 2022, 14 (674).

 

Design of an observational multi-country cohort study to assess immunogenicity of multiple vaccine platforms (InVITE) Irini Sereti, Kathryn Shaw-Saliba, Lori E. Dodd,  Robin L. Dewar, Sylvain Laverdure, Shawn Brown, Olivier Tshiani Mbaya, Jean Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, Placide Mblala-Kingebeni, Ydrissa Sow, Esther Akpa, Mory Cherif Haidara, Karine Fouth Tchos, Abdoul Habib Beavogui, Aaron Neal, Dona Arlinda, Dewi Lokida, Louis Grue, Mary Smolskis, Laura A. McNay, Dehkontee Gayedyu-Dennis, Guillermo M. Ruiz-Palacios, Abelardo Montenegro-Liendo, Moctar Tounkara,Seydou Samake,Ganbolor Jargalsaikhan, Delgersaikhan Zulkhuu, Shera Weyers, Tyler Bonnett, Gail E. Potter, Randy Stevens, Adam Rupert, Jamila Aboulhab, Jean-Luc Biampata, Alexandre Delamo, Bienvenu Salim Camara, Herman Kosasih Indonesia, Muhammad Karyana, James T. Duworko, Justino Regalado-Pineda, Paola del Carmen Guerra-de-Blas, Seydou Doumbia, Djeneba Dabitao, Naranjargal Dashdorj, Naranbaatar Dashdorj, Kevin Newell, Alyson Francis, Kevin Rubenstein, Victoria Bera, Iman Gulati, Ratna Sardana, Monica Millard, Renee Ridzon , Sally Hunsberger, 2022 PLoS One.

 

Drissa Coulibaly, Abdoulaye K Kone, Karim Traore, Amadou Niangaly, Bourema Kouriba, Charles Arama, Amatigue Zeguime, Amagana Dolo, Kirsten E Lyke, Christopher V Plowe, Yonas Abebe, Gail E. Potter, Jessie K Kennedy, Shirley M. Galbiati, Effie Nomicos, Gregory A. Deye, Thomas L Richie, Eric R James, Natasha KC, B Kim Lee Sim, Stephen L Hoffman, Ogobara K Doumbo, Mahamadou A Thera, Matthew B Laurens, on behalf of the DMID 15-0052 PfSPZ-CVac Study Team.  PfSPZ-CVac malaria vaccine demonstrates safety among malaria-experienced adults: a randomized, controlled  phase 1 trial.  eClinicalMedicine, 2022.


Collins, Matthew H., Gail E. Potter, Matt DT Hitchings, Ellie Butler, Michelle Wiles, Jessie K. Kennedy, Sofia B. Pinto et al.  EVITA Dengue: a cluster-randomized controlled trial to EValuate the efficacy of Wolbachia-InfecTed Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in reducing the incidence of Arboviral infection in Brazil. Trials 23, no. 1 (2022): 1-18. 

Gail E. Potter, Nicole Carnegie, Jonathan D. Sugimoto, Aldiouma Diallo, John Chris Victor, Kathleen Neuzil, and M. Elizabeth Halloran, 2021.  Using social contact data to improve the overall effect estimate of a cluster-randomized influenza vaccination program in Senegal, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C.

Gail E. Potter, 2020.  Dismantling the Fragility Index: A Demonstration of Statistical Reasoning.  Statistics in Medicine.  doi.org/10.1002/sim.8689.  A 10-minute presentation of this paper is here, given at the Society for Clinical Trials 2021.

Wendy A. Keitel, Gail E. Potter, David Diemert, Jeffrey Bethony, Hana M. El Sahly, Jessie K. Kennedy, Shital M. Patel, Jordan L. Plieskatt, Walter Jones, Gregory Deye, and Maria Elena Bottazzi, 2019.  A phase 1 study of the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of a Schistosoma mansoni vaccine with or without glucopyranosyl lipid A aqueous formulation (GLA-AF) in healthy adults from a non-endemic area. Vaccine.

Gail E. Potter, Jimmy Wong, Jonathan Sugimoto, Aldiouma Diallo, John C. Victor, Kathleen Neuzil, and M. Elizabeth Halloran, 2019. Networks of face-to-face social contacts in Niakhar, Senegal. PLoS One 14 (8)

Matthew B Laurens, Andrea A Berry, Mark A Travassos, Kathy Strauss, Matthew Adams, Biraj Shrestha, Tao Li, Abraham Eappen, Anita Manoj, Yonas Abebe, Tooba Murshedkar, Anusha Gunasekera, Thomas L Richie, Kirsten E Lyke, Christopher V Plowe, Jessie K Kennedy, Gail E Potter, Gregory A Deye, BKL Sim, Stephen L Hoffman, 2019. Dose dependent infectivity of aseptic, purified, cryopreserved Plasmodium falciparum 7G8 sporozoites in malaria-naive adults. The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Nele Goeyvaerts, Eva Santermans, Gail Potter, Andrea Torneri,  Kim Van Kerckhove,  Lander Willem,  Marc Aerts,  Philippe Beutels and Niel Hens, 2018.  Household members do not contact each other at random: implications for infectious disease modelling.  Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 285 (1893).

Titus H. Divala, Randy G. Mungwira, Patricia M. Mawindo, Osward M. Nyirenda, Maxwell Kanjala, Masiye Ndaferankhande, Lufina E. Tsirizani, Rhoda Masonga, Francis Muwalo, Gail E. Potter, Jessie Kennedy, et al., 2018. Chloroquine as weekly chemoprophylaxis or intermittent treatment to prevent malaria in pregnancy in Malawi: a randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 18 (10), 1097-1107.

Jimmy Doi, Gail E. Potter, Jimmy Wong, Irvin Alcaraz, and Peter Chi, Web Application Teaching Tools for Statistics Using R and Shiny, (2016) Technology Innovations in Statistics Education 9 (1).

Gail E. Potter, Timo Smieszek, and Kerstin Sailer, Modeling workplace contact networks: The effects of organizational structure, architecture, and reporting errors on epidemic predictions, (2015) Network Science 3 (3), 298-325.

Gail E. Potter and Niel Hens.  A penalized likelihood approach to estimate within-household contact networks from egocentric data, (2013) Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C (Applied Statistics), 62 (4), p. 629-648.

Gail E. Potter, Mark S. Handcock, Ira M. Longini, Jr., and M. Elizabeth Halloran.  Estimating Within-School Contact Networks to Understand Influenza Transmission, (2012) The Annals of Applied Statistics, 6 (1), 1-26.

Gail E. Potter, Mark S. Handcock, Ira M. Longini, Jr., and M. Elizabeth Halloran.  Estimating Within-Household Contact Networks from Egocentric Data, (2011) The Annals of Applied Statistics, 5 (3), 1816-1838.

Gail E. Potter and Mark S. Handcock, A Description of Within-Family Resource Exchange Networks in a Malawian Village, (2010)  Demographic Research, 23, 117-152

Yang Yang, Jonathan D. Sugimoto, M. Elizabeth Halloran, Nicole E. Basta, Dennis L. Chao, Laura Matrajt, Gail Potter, Eben Kenah, Ira M. Longini, Jr.  The Transmissibility and Control of Pandemic Influenza A (H1N1) Virus.  Science 30 October 2009: 326 (5953), 729 – 733


Web Applications created with Shiny and R

Maximum Likelihood Estimation.  This app illustrates the concept of maximum likelihood estimation through the example of estimating a binomial proportion.  

Robustness of ANOVA.   This app allows the user to explore robustness of ANOVA to violation of the constant variance assumption and derive a rule of thumb for practitioners of statistics.

Sampling distributions.  This app uses simulation to illustrate the concept of sampling distributions.  Various population shapes and statistics (min, max, mean, median, quartiles, etc.) can be selected by the user. 

These apps are part of the Cal Poly Shiny Series.

Senior Research Projects

Boudewijn Aasman (2015), Simulating the NBA playoffs using Logistic Regression and Random Forests.

Irvin Alcaraz (2015),  Web Applications through RStudio's Shiny package.  Three apps (links below) were created in this project and are part of the Cal Poly Shiny Series.

        Correlation and Regression Game, in which the user guesses the correlation of simulated data, and guesses the intercept and slope of the least squares regression line;

        Multiple Regression Visualization, in which various regression surfaces are visualized in three dimensions; and 

        Probability Distribution Viewer, which displays various probability distributions, p-values, and quantiles.

Kelly Johnson (2015), Using Shiny to Visualize Terrorism Data.

Helen Totterdell (2015), Developing Applets for Science Courses: a Data Science Capstone Project.

Jessica Watson (2015), A Statistical Analysis of Implicit Race Attitudes as Predictors of Vote in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.

Henry Bongiovi (2014), Simulating Influenza Transmission with Network Data.

Ciani Sparks (2013), Is Obesity Socially Contagious? 

Teaching