Nicole Danaher-Garcia

Nicole Danaher-Garcia is an assistant professor at MGH Institute of Health Professions. She teaches quantitative analysis and predictive analytics courses in the Master and PhD programs in Health Professions Education. She is an integrative biologist and ethologist with interests in behavior, emotional intelligence, conservation, and quantitative analysis. Nicole completed her doctorate at UMass Dartmouth in collaboration with a nonprofit organization called the Dolphin Communication Project; her dissertation applied quantitative methodology and modelling to the study of the social behavior of a population of wild Atlantic spotted dolphins in The Bahamas. The publications that resulted from her dissertation have recently garnered a lot of media attention, including interviews with the New York Times, Science Magazine, and Newsweek.

Nicole has a particular interest in network analysis, having used it in her study of dolphin social behavior. Using social network analysis, she uncovered a more meaningful approach to social relationships using observed physical interaction, rather than simply presence in the same social group. She is currently working on expanding on her previous work in social network analysis and is interested in applying Bayesian techniques to the study of social behavior and emotional contagion. She is also working to develop AI tools to improve instructor feedback during simulation-based training of health professions students.