Olga Demler
Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology
Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Departments
Department of Epidemiology
Other Positions
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Medicine-Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Biography
My research lies at the intersection of methodological development and clinical translation, transforming high-dimensional data, from multi-omics to medical imaging, into validated tools for precision medicine.
As a biostatistician in the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, the clinical focus of my research centers on understanding the mechanisms underlying the onset and progression of cardiovascular diseases.
Core Research Areas:
Methodological Innovation: I develop the "gold standards" for risk prediction. My research on AUC comparison and model calibration is cited in the TRIPOD and other guidelines and the SAS manual, shaping how prognostic models are developed and validated globally.
Clinical AI & Imaging: We adapt deep learning frameworks to extract "hidden" physiological signatures from ECGs and medical images. Our recent work in JAMA Cardiology (2024) demonstrates how AI can tailor risk models to specific local populations, moving beyond "one-size-fits-all" medicine.
Multi-Omics Discovery: I oversee the design and analysis of large-scale biomarker studies, leveraging biobanks and deeply phenotyped cohorts to identify the molecular drivers of disease.
Women’s Health & CKM Syndrome: As PI of a 2025-2029 AHA SFRN Project, I lead investigations into the Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic (CKM) syndrome, focusing on the unique longitudinal event trajectories and risk factors in women.
The following publications highlight some of my research activities:
1. Zinzuwadia AN, Mineeva O, Li C, Farukhi Z, Giulianini F, Cade B, Chen L, Karlson E, Paynter N, Mora S, Demler OV. Tailoring Risk Prediction Models to Local Populations. [i]JAMA Cardiology[/i], 2024. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2024.2912, PMID:39292486
2. Mineeva O, Li C, Giulianini F, Häfliger S, Bubes V, Raetsch G, Mora S, Demler OV. Development and Validation of Novel Residual Risk Scores for Patients With ASCVD. JACC Adv. 2025 Nov;4(11 Pt 1):102162. doi: 10.1016/j.jacadv.2025.102162. Epub 2025 Oct 7. PMID: 41061571; PMCID: PMC12538155.
3. Butani AK, Farukhi Z, Brueggemann D, Rist P, Tanner FC, Demler OV, AI-Detected Asymptomatic Atrial Fibrillation and Risk of Incident Ischemic Stroke and Cardiovascular Events: A UK Biobank Study, 2026, MedRxiv.
4. Demler OV, Liu Y, Luttmann-Gibson H, Watrous JD, Lagerborg KA, Dashti H, Giulianini F, Heath M, Camargo CA Jr, Harris WS, Wohlgemuth JG, Andres AM, Tivari S, Long T, Najhawan M, Dao K, Prentice JG, Larsen JA, Okereke OI, Costenbader KH, Buring JE, Manson JE, Cheng S, Jain M, Mora S. One-Year Effects of Omega-3 Treatment on Fatty Acids, Oxylipins, and Related Bioactive Lipids and Their Associations with Clinical Lipid and Inflammatory Biomarkers: Findings from a Substudy of the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL). Metabolites. 2020;10(11):431. doi: 10.3390/metabo10110431. PMID: 33120862; PMCID: PMC7693376.
5. Sels D, Dashti H, Mora S, Demler O, Demler E. Quantum approximate Bayesian computation for NMR model inference. Nat Mach Intell. 2020 Jul;2(7):396-402. doi: 10.1038/s42256-020-0198-x. Epub 2020 Jul 6. PMID: 33163858; PMCID: PMC7643990.
6. Demler OV, Pencina MJ, D'Agostino RB Sr. Misuse of DeLong test to compare AUCs for nested models. Stat Med. 2012 Oct 15;31(23):2577-87. doi: 10.1002/sim.5328. Epub 2012 Mar 13. PMID: 22415937; PMCID: PMC3684152.
7. Demler OV, Paynter NP, Cook NR. Tests of calibration and goodness-of-fit in the survival setting. Stat Med. 2015 May 10; 34(10):1659-80. PMID: 25684707.