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Portrait of a smiling person in a blue shirt, standing in front of a blurred brick building background.

David Larsen

Contact Information:

dalarsen@syr.edu

315.443.4059

444F White Hall

David Larsen

Professor and Chair, Public Health Department


Courses

  • 2025 Fall
    • BIO 460 Research in Biology
  • 2025 Spring
    • ANT/PHP 463/663 Global Health

Highest degree earned

Ph.D., School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University, 2013

Bio

David Larsen is an infectious disease epidemiologist. His content expertise lies broadly in global health, with specific expertise in infectious disease surveillance. 

Research Grant Awards and Projects

"New York State Wastewater Surveillance Center of Excellence", Sponsored by Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

"Examining Neighborhood Profiles Defined by Place-Based Community Features and their Relationships with Firearm Violence Disparities", Sponsored by National Institutes of Health.

"Conducting A Racial Equity Impact Assessment And Developing A Community Advisory Board To Inform The Expansion Of The New York State Wastewater Surveillance Network", Sponsored by Johns Hopkins University.

"Field trials and optimization of dried attractive bait stations in Puerto Rico", Sponsored by Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

"ELC Wastewater Surveillance Phase 3", Sponsored by Department of Health & Human Services.

"NYS Wastewater Surveillance Network-Phase 2", Sponsored by Department of Health & Human Services.

"2021 Emergency Response - RARE Programme", Sponsored by Internet Society Foundation.

"NYS Wastewater Surveillance Network", Sponsored by Department of Health & Human Services.

Selected Publications

Presentations and Events

Hruska, B. J., Zhang, H., Bardapurkar, J., Larsen, D. A., Formica, M. K., National Research Conference for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms, "Beyond individual risk factors: identifying neighborhood profiles that predict event- and residence-based firearm casualties" (2025)

Neyra, M., Neigel, D., Larsen, D. A., Kmush, B. L., Epidemics, "Boosting vaccination uptake using wastewater surveillance: A county-randomized controlled trial" (2025)

New York State Wastewater surveillance workshop, "Design considerations: outbreak detection in wastewater surveillance" (2025)

New York State wastewater surveillance workshop, "Detection rate: the first and most basic indicator in wastewater surveillance" (2025 - 2025)

Hil, D. T., Schulman, R., Dunham, C., Caldas, I., Ahmed-Braimah, Y. H., Rickerman, L., St. George, K., Lamson, D., Green, H., Zhu, Y., Larsen, D. A., Epidemics, "Diversity of SARS-CoV-2 genome in wastewater predicts infections and hospitalizations better than concentrations" (2025)

Arizona Biosafety Alliance, "Environmental (wastewater) surveillance for polio following a paralytic case in New York State in July 2022" (2025)

Neyra, M., Pulido, N., Asiedu-Danso, M., Hill, D. T., Rose, M. G., Zhu, Y., Pollack-Porter, K., Larsen, D. A., Testing the Waters, "Equities and inequities inherent in wastewater surveillance systems for public health" (2025)

University of Utah, "Innovations in infectious disease surveillance and outbreak detection" (2025)

Leveraging Diverse Data Sources for Crisis Reponse & Preparedness, New York City Pandemic Response Institute, "Preparing infectious disease surveillance systems for the next emerging or re-emerging pathogen." (2025)

Lang, D., Rosenberg, E., Alazawi, M., Fuschino, M., Godinez, A., St. George, K., Larsen, D. A., Neyra, M., Hill, D., Hughes, S., Jorba, J., Gerloff, N., Fei Fan, N., Oberste, S., Association of Public Health Laboratories Infectious Disease Laboratory Conference (APHL ID Lab)., "Rapid-response wastewater testing to support a polio outbreak investigation" (2023)

Public Health and Water Conference & Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit, "Coupling freedom from disease principles and early warning from wastewater surveillance to improve health security." (2022)

Public Webinar, "Introduction to the New York State Wastewater Surveillance Network" (2022)

Hill, D., Cousins, H., Dadaraw, B., Faruolo, C., Godinez, A., Run, S., Smith, S., Wilkens, M., Zirath, S., Larsen, D. A., Public Health and Water Conference & Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit., "Ready and willing: New York state wastewater treatment plants show high capacity to pull and ship samples as part of a public health wastewater surveillance network." (2022)

New York State Public Health Association Annual Meeting, "The New York State Wastewater Surveillance Network" (2022)

Institute of Biological Engineering, "Waiting for numerical anomalies: Can we improve infectious disease surveillance?" (2022)

SUNY Albany School of Public Health and Department of Geography, "A wastewater surveillance network for New York – responding to COVID-19 and improving future public health decision making. GIS Days." (2021)

International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance., "Improving health security through wastewater surveillance" (2021)

National Academy of Sciences – Infectious disease and environmental health research and decision making workshop, "Improving health security through wastewater surveillance" (2021)

Larsen, D. A., Collins, M. B., Du, Q., Insaf, T. Z., Kilaru, P., Kmush, B. L., Middleton, F., Stamm, A., Wilder, M. L., Zeng, T., "Incorporating freedom from disease principles into wastewater surveillance to improve health security: a case study of SARS-CoV-2. Epidemics." (2021)

New University of Singapore, "Leveraging wastewater surveillance to improve health security. NERI: International e-workshop on wastewater-based COVID-19 surveillance." (2021)

Monthly Seminar Series, New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology,, "The New York State wastewater surveillance network" (2021)

Annual conference of New York State environmental health directors., "The New York State wastewater surveillance network." (2021)

Central Chapter Annual Meeting, "The New York State wastewater surveillance network. New York Water and Environmental Association (NYWEA)" (2021)

Hill, D. T., Cousins, H., Dandaraw, B., Faruolo, C., Godinez, A., Run, S., Smith, S., Wilkens, M., Larsen, D. A., Zirath, S., Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 NSF Research Coordination Network. Online, 2021. Larsen DA. A wastewater surveillance network, "Treatment plant capability to test for COVID-19 in New York" (2021)

Honors and Accolades

Chancellor's Citation for Excellence - Outstanding Group Contributions to Student Experience and University Initiatives, Syracuse University: One University Awards (2021)

Chancellor's Medal, Syracuse University: One University Awards (2021)

Faculty of the Year Award for Excellence in Research, Syracuse University, Falk College (2018)