Amir Mokhtari is chief scientist for Booz Allen’s health practice. Amir has over 14 years of experience forecasting public health risks through developing and applying complex predictive mathematical models. In his current role, he leads the firm’s efforts to innovatively address a wide range of public health crises, from the COVID-19 pandemic to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States and abroad.
Amir is a versatile risk modeler with deep expertise in methods ranging from agent-based models of disease transmission to deep learning analytics applied to surveillance and environmental sampling data. He leads multidisciplinary teams in risk modeling, spatial statistics, geographic information systems mapping, database design, and web-based programming to develop novel risk assessment models and decision support tools for various clients. Recently Amir and his team developed a COVID-19 Safe Return Simulator that leveraged cutting-edge forecasting methods to help federal, state, and local decision makers determine when it was safe to ease pandemic-related restrictions on a county-by-county level.
Before joining Booz Allen, Amir worked as a senior risk analyst for RTI International and a risk modeler for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. While at the FDA, he developed computational models to address public health risks associated with microbial foodborne outbreaks.
Amir holds a B.S. in civil engineering and an M.S. in hydraulic structures from the University of Tehran and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from North Carolina State University.
