Liz Stuart Biography

Elizabeth “Liz” Stuart is an outstanding alumni from Laconia High School that graduated as Valedictorian of the Class of 1993. She went on to obtain her Bachelor’s Degree from Smith College, majoring in Mathematics and minoring in Chemistry. Liz went on to work at Mathematica Policy Research in Princeton, New Jersey, and then attended Harvard University for her PhD in Statistics. Liz went to Smith College knowing she wanted to be a math major, and that she wanted to apply it to the social sciences/public policy field. In college she worked mostly with Theoretical Math, but after college she worked at Mathematica Policy Research, working on public policy-related research projects. It was then that she realized statistics was a way to combine her interests. She went to graduate school for statistics, still knowing that she wanted to apply it to social sciences. She is glad to have found her way into public health, which led her to a career that is incredibly stimulating, with many dedicated, smart, and kind colleagues, where she feels like she can be working to make the world a better place. “It sounds cheesy”, she says, “but it's true.” 

Since graduate school, Liz has been in the fields of statistics, public health, and education research. She worked at a public policy research firm (Mathematica), and since 2006 has been at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where she does some teaching, but most of her time is spent on research related to statistics, mental health, substance use, and public policy. The well-rounded skills she developed starting at LHS has served her well, as her job is a mix of communication (especially teaching), writing, collaborating, and quantitative data analysis. She also serves as Vice Dean for Education at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, soon becoming the Executive Vice Dean for Academic Affairs. Much of her work deals with the development of statistical methods, which helps with challenges when trying to estimate the effects of programs or policies. During the pandemic, she has been researching ways to help understand how to reduce COVID-19 transmission in schools, as well as working to understand the mental health of teachers during the pandemic. 

Liz would also like to highlight that in addition to her work, she is very lucky to have an incredibly supportive husband, Brian Doyle, who she met in 1997 when she moved to Princeton, NJ. She currently lives in Washington, D.C. and has an 11 year old son, Paul, and a 13 year old daughter, Clara. As a family, they enjoy traveling. Liz enjoys running, and especially long runs on the weekends. When asked by her daughter why she started running, Liz realized it was thanks to Mrs. Garside’s field hockey practices. At the time, she thought those practices were torture, but now she loves running and has been participating in ten mile and half marathon races, and thinks she may be running faster than she did in high school! Liz and her family consider themselves lucky to have spent the past two summers back here in New Hampshire. Her mother lives in Sandwich on Squam Lake, so they take advantage of virtual work to spend their summers in New Hampshire. She hopes to continue doing that long-term, finding it to be a nice way to reconnect with her home state. She still feels a strong connection here and is very proud of her hometown. Whenever Liz hears that someone is from New Hampshire or knows it well, she will always want to talk to them about it and tell them about her background.