Dr. Tomas is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology in the Institute for Health and Equity and Deputy Director of the Division of Data Analytics and Informatics in the Comprehensive Injury Center (CIC)at MCW. Dr. Tomas earned her PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. Dr. Tomas joined MCW in 2021 and serves as the Statistical Director for the Public and Community Health PhD program at MCW.
With a background in neuroscience and data science, Dr. Tomas is establishing a novel line of research that comprehensively evaluates injury and trauma populations with advanced quantitative techniques. With traumatic injury being a leading cause of hospitalization and financial burden within the US healthcare system, it’s imperative to understand pre-injury risk factors and post-injury outcomes in as comprehensive manner as possible. In her unique position across Epidemiology and Social Sciences and the CIC, her work interrogates the biopsychosocial and environmental context from which trauma populations come to understand outcomes after trauma and injury. By applying a more holistic approach, she aims to understand risk and resilience factors of injury and violence that can inform prevention and intervention programming. Her research has identified neural, behavioral, and contextual factors related to negative psychological outcomes after traumatic injury. In her KL2 award, she has applied longitudinal analysis to understand traumatic injury trends in a national database, used forecasting procedures to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on local injury trends, and used geospatial analysis to understand the spatial trends of injury within theMilwaukee community. Through collaborations in the CIC, she has also analyzed trends of suicide in WI, forecasted firearm-related injury in Milwaukee County, and co-led the evaluation design and plan for community- and hospital-based violence interruption programs.
