George G. Vega Yon

George G. Vega Yon, MSci, PhD

Languages spoken: English, Spanish

Academic Information

Departments Primary - Internal Medicine , Adjunct - Population Health Sciences

Divisions: Epidemiology

Lab

Research Interests

  • Social Networks and Complex Systems
  • Statistical Computing
  • Scientific Software Development
  • Statistical Methods Development
  • Nonparametric Statistics

George G. Vega Yon is an Assistant Professor of Research at the Division of Epidemiology at the University of Utah. He studies Complex Systems using Statistical Computing. He has over ten years of experience developing scientific software focusing on high-performance computing, data visualization, and social network analysis. His training is in Public Policy (M.A. UAI, 2011), Economics (M.Sc. Caltech, 2015), and Biostatistics (Ph.D. USC, 2020).

Education History

Doctoral Training University of Southern California
 PhD
Graduate Training California Institute of Technology
 MSc
Graduate Training Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
 MA
Undergraduate Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez
 BS

Selected Publications

Journal Article

  1. Piombo SE, Vega Yon GG, Valente TW (2025). The Impact of Social Norms on Diffusion Dynamics: A Simulation of E-Cigarette Use Behavior. Health Educ Behav, 10901981251327189. (Read full article)
  2. Duong KNC, Nguyen DT, Kategeaw W, Liang X, Khaing W, Visnovsky LD, Veettil SK, McFarland MM, Nelson RE, Jones BE, Pavia AT, Coates E, Khader K, Love J, Vega Yon GG, Zhang Y, Willson T, Dorsan E, Toth DJA, Jones MM, Samore MH, Chaiyakunapruk N (2024). Incorporating social determinants of health into transmission modeling of COVID-19 vaccine in the US: a scoping review. Lancet Reg Health Am, 35, 100806. (Read full article)
  3. Sargent M, Matthews LJ, Vega Yon GG, Storholm ED, Ober AJ, Green HD (2024). Assessing the dynamics of PrEP adoption in a national-scale physician network. Soc Networks, 78, 226-237.
  4. Bischoff, Vega Yon GG (2023). VISUALIZING MOVIE MAGIC: GRAPHING CHARACTER CONNECTIONS IN BELOVED FILMS. Univ Utah's J Undergrad Res, 24(2).
  5. Tanaka K, Vega Yon GG (2023). Imaginary network motifs: Structural patterns of false positives and negatives in social networks. Soc Networks, 78, 65-80.
  6. Vega Yon GG (2023). Power and Multicollinearity in Small Networks: A Discussion of “Tale of Two Datasets: Representativeness and Generalisability of Inference for Samples of Networks” by Krivitsky, Coletti, and Hens. J Am Stat Assoc, 118(544).
  7. Meyer D, Vega Yon GG (2023). epiworldR: Fast Agent-Based Epi Models. J Open Source Softw, 8(90), 5781.
  8. Panahi S, Kennedy E, Roghani A, Vega Yon GG, VanCott A, Grugger JJ, Lopez MR, Pugh MJ (2023). Veteran perspectives of epilepsy care: Impact of Veteran satisfaction, knowledge, and proactivity. Epilepsy Behav, 144, 109218.
  9. Vega Yon GG, Pugh MJ, Valente TW (2022). Discrete Exponential-Family Models for Multivariate Binary Outcomes. ArXiv.
  10. Hncean MG, Perc M, Gheorghi A, Vega Yon GG, Mihil BE (2022). The formation of political discussion networks. R Soc Open Sci, 9(1), 211609. (Read full article)
  11. Ouellet M, Hashimi S, Vega Yon GG (2022). Officer Networks and Firearm Behaviors: Assessing the Social Transmission of Weapon-Use. J Quant Criminol. (Read full article)
  12. Vega Yon GG (2021). Building, Importing, and Exporting GEXF Graph Files with rgexf. J Open Source Softw, 6(64), 3456.
  13. Vega Yon GG, Thomas DC, Morrison J, Mi H, Thomas PD, Marjoram P (2021). Bayesian parameter estimation for automatic annotation of gene functions using observational data and phylogenetic trees. PLoS Comput Biol, 17(2), e1007948. (Read full article)
  14. Vega Yon GG, Slaughter A, de la Haye K (2021). Exponential random graph models for little networks. Soc Networks, 64, 225-238. (Read full article)
  15. Valente TW, Vega Yon GG (2020). Diffusion/Contagion Processes on Social Networks. Health Educ Behav, 47(2), 235-248. (Read full article)
  16. Vega Yon GGQuistorff B (2019). parallel: A command for parallel computing. Stata J, 19(3), 667-684. (Read full article)
  17. de la Haye K, Shin H, Vega Yon GG, Valente TW (2019). Smoking Diffusion through Networks of Diverse, Urban American Adolescents over the High School Period. J Health Soc Behav, 60(3), 362-376. (Read full article)
  18. Vega Yon GG, Marjoram P (2019). fmcmc: A friendly MCMC framework. J Open Source Softw, 4(39), 1427.
  19. Vega Yon GG, Marjoram P (2019). slurmR: A lightweight wrapper for HPC with Slurm. J Open Source Softw, 4(39), 1493.
  20. Bell BM, Spruijt-Metz D, Vega Yon GG, Mondol AS, Alam R, Ma M, Emi I, Lach J, Stankovic JA, De la Haye K (2019). Sensing eating mimicry among family members. Transl Behav Med, 9(3), 422-430. (Read full article)
  21. Valente TW, Pitts S, Wipfli H, Vega Yon GG (2019). Network influences on policy implementation: Evidence from a global health treaty. Soc Sci Med, 222, 188-197. (Read full article)
  22. Vega Yon GG, Marjoram P (2019). fmcmc: A friendly MCMC framework. J Open Source Softw, 4(39). (Read full article)
  23. Fbrega Lacoa J, Vega Yon GG (2013). El impacto del rating televisivo sobre la actividad en Twitter: evidencia para Chile sobre la base del evento TELETÓN 2012. (33), 3-52.

Book

  1. Vega Yon GG (October 2024 (originally published on January 2018)). Applied Network Science with R.
  2. Vega Yon GG (April, 2023). Applied HPC with R.
  3. Vega Yon GG (January, 2024). Statistical Inference in Network Science.

Other

  1. Valente TW, Pitts S, Wipfli H, Vega Yon GG (2020). Corrigendum to "Network influences on policy implementation: Evidence from a global health treaty" [Soc. Sci. Med.] 222 (February 2019) 188-197. Soc Sci Med (258, p. 112245). England. (Read full article)