Transforming health data
into evidence that matters

Senior RWE Scientist with 7+ years of experience in pharmaceutical and academic research. Hands-on expertise across HealthVerity, Optum EHR, Optum Claims, IQVIA PharMetrics, and PINC AI/Premier. At Pfizer, served as primary internal data expert on the COVID-19 RWE team. Creator of RWE Code Explorer.

Education: MS Analytics, NC State
Certification: SAS Certified
Publications: 6 peer-reviewed
Location: Philadelphia, PA

About

Education

  • 2021 MS Analytics
    NC State University
  • 2017 BS Neuroscience
    University of Texas at Dallas
  • Certification SAS Certified Base Programmer

Experience

  • 2022–2025 RWE Scientist, Manager
    Pfizer
  • 2021–2022 RWE Data Scientist
    Target Real World Evidence Solutions
  • 2018–2020 Senior Clinical Research Supervisor
    Duke University
  • 2020–2021 Practicum Scrum Master
    Church & Dwight Co.

At Pfizer, I served as the primary internal data expert on the COVID-19 RWE team, working directly with senior epidemiologists across the full study lifecycle. I designed and executed cross-therapeutic feasibility analyses in Snowflake across five major data sources, performed exposure-indexed outcome ascertainment for antiviral effectiveness studies, and authored study protocols and statistical analysis plans. During QC validation, I identified a vaccine CPT code misalignment that had caused systematic data errors, resulting in a full-year data credit from HealthVerity worth over $1 million.

At Target Real World Evidence Solutions, I was learning the foundations of RWE methodology while contributing to various analytical tasks. I primarily worked on editing existing codebases and extending functionality by adding arguments to the company's proprietary CausalStudio platform, which was in active development at the time.

At Duke University, I served as Senior Clinical Research Supervisor in the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center, where I designed and executed research pipelines for MRI-based cognitive aging studies. I processed and analyzed neuroimaging data using custom scripts on a Linux HPC cluster and authored study documentation, IRB protocols, and psychometric battery procedures.

Beyond pharmaceutical research, I build tools that make RWE more rigorous and reproducible. My project RWE Code Explorer provides the research community with validated cohort definitions, production-ready code, and study design parameters.

Publications

Peer-reviewed research in COVID-19, vaccine effectiveness, and neuroscience

2024 · IDWeek Conference, Los Angeles

COVID-19 XBB.1.5 Vaccine Uptake Based on State Vaccine Registries Compared to National Survey Data

Cook A, Andersen K, et al.

Presented at IDWeek 2024

First Author

2025 · Journal of the American Medical Directors Association

COVID-19 Vaccination and Impact on Morbidity Among Nursing Home Residents

Khan FL, Boucher J, Wiemken TL, Cook AD, et al.

2024 · Journal of Medical Economics

Health Outcomes and Economic Burden Among Patients with a COVID-19-Associated Hospitalization in the United States

Yehoshua A, Cook A, Di Fusco M, et al.

27(1):1372-1378

2022 · Human Brain Mapping

Cortical Iron Mediates Age-Related Decline in Fluid Cognition

Howard C, Jain S, Cook A, et al.

43(3):1047-1060

2022 · ICPE Conference, Copenhagen

In-Hospital Treatment Patterns Among Patients Hospitalized with COVID-19 in the United States

Rathnayaka N, Wiener C, Breskin A, Cook A, Brookhart MA

1st Place Spotlight Award, Drug Utilization Research

2020 · Neurobiology of Aging

Influence of Structural and Functional Brain Connectivity on Age-Related Differences in Fluid Cognition

Madden D, Jain S, Monge Z, Cook A, et al.

96:205-222

2019 · Neurocase

Neural Activation for Actual and Imagined Movement Following Unilateral Hand Transplantation: A Case Study

Madden D, Melton M, Jain S, Cook A, et al.

25(6):225-234

Projects

Building tools and resources that advance real-world evidence research

RWE Code Explorer

Community-sourced platform providing validated cohort definitions with production-ready ICD-10, CPT, CVX, and NDC codes. Includes SQL templates, validation metrics, and study design parameters. All submissions require ORCID verification and published validation studies.

View Project →

Life Autopsy

Exploring narrative medicine and the stories we tell about health, illness, and recovery. A creative project examining how we make sense of complex human experiences through data and storytelling.

View Project →

Contact

Interested in collaboration, consulting, or connecting about real-world evidence research?

I'm open to senior or director-level RWE roles, global opportunities, and consulting engagements in vaccine effectiveness, COVID-19 research, and chronic disease epidemiology.