Ellicott C. Matthay, PhD

Dr. Matthay is a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy within the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She studies how the social, economic, and physical characteristics of communities affect health, and how public policies can shift these characteristics to improve population health and reduce racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic health disparities. She has substantive expertise in violence, suicide, alcohol, and drugs, and methodological expertise in epidemiologic and biostatistical methods, causal inference, policy evaluation, machine learning, and geospatial data. Dr. Matthay applies multidisciplinary causal inference methods to traditional and nontraditional public health data sources including population-based surveys, health care utilization records, vital statistics, and web-scraped documents. She also conducts methodological investigations to improve the rigor of applied studies in her field. 

Dr. Matthay’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. She has 5 years of experience leading large, federally-funded research grants. Dr, Matthay completed a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism that examined the impacts of local alcohol control and cannabis control policies on self-directed and interpersonal violence. She currently holds an R01 Award from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control to study the impacts of local economic support and alcohol control policies on firearm assault injury.

Dr. Matthay has published over 80 peer-reviewed publications, including articles in The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Epidemiology, and Epidemiology. The exceptional rigor, creativity, and impact of her work were recognized by the Society for Epidemiologic Research with the prestigious Tyroler Student Paper Prize in 2017 and the Lilienfeld Postdoctoral Paper Prize in 2021, and by the Research Society for the Prevention of Firearm-Related Harms with an Equity and Justice Award in 2024. Her work has been recognized by national scientific organizations and societies, scientific journals, policymakers, regulators, and national media outlets including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and WIRED.