Qian Zhang presented the paper titled "Forecasting Seasonal Influenza Fusing Digital Indicators and a Mechanistic Disease Model" at the 26th International World Wide Web Conference, 2017, in Perth Australia. Co-authors are: Nicola Perra, Daniela Perotta, Michele Tizzoni, Daniela Paolotti, and Alessandro Vespignani.
The team received Honorable Mention for Best Paper.
Congratulations!
Trevor Bedford and Richard Neher are winners of the first-ever Open Science Prize. They will share the $230,000 prize money.
Trevor and Richard developed nextstrain, a real-time tracking tool for emerging epidemics such as ebola and zika. Read Trevor's blog post to find out more about how the idea first started.
The Open Science Prize is a collaboration between the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Congratulations Trevor and Richard!
Alex Vespignani was presented with an honorary doctorate degree, during the "Technology for Life" program celebrating the 175th anniversary of Delft University of Technology.
The presentation ceremony was held on Friday, January 13, 2017.
Program details and video recording of the ceremony: [link]
Congratulations, Alex!
Trevor Bedford and Richard Neher are one of the three teams that made it to the final round of the first-ever Open Science Prize. The most recent round involved a public vote - thank you to all who voted! The final three prototypes will be reviewed by experts, and a grand prize winner will be announced in early March 2017. The winner will receive a prize of $230,000.
The Open Science Prize is a collaboration between the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Trevor and Richard developed nextstrain, a real-time tracking tool for emerging epidemics such as ebola and zika.
Congratulations Trevor and Richard!
The University of Florida has officially recognized the Center for Statistics and Quantitative Infectious Diseases (CSQUID) as a University center. CSQUID is co-directed by Dr. Ira Longini at the University of Florida, and Dr. Betz Halloran at Fred Hutch. Research at CSQUID involves the development of statistical and mathematical models for infectious disease transmission, pathogenesis, evolution, immunology, and intervention in communities. CSQUID works on influenza, dengue, zika, ebola, cholera, typhoid, malaria, and many other infectious disease threats. CSQUID-UF will also deal with the analysis and control of public health infectious disease threats in the State of Florida, the US, and internationally.
John Drake is the director of the new Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases (CEID), at the University of Georgia. CEID seeks to address the problems at the intersection of ecology and infectious diseases by developing innovative technical methods and novel collaborative approaches, which draw upon the various fields vested in infectious disease research. Anyone is welcome to participate – check out the CEID website for news and opportunities.
CIDID current and former members Alex Vespignani, Betz Halloran, Ira Longini, Ana Pastore y Piontti, and Dennis Chao are part of an Italian/US team that won the inaugural Aspen Institute Italia Award for scientific research and collaboration between Italy and the United States. The team was awarded for their research study entitled: "Spatiotemporal spread of the 2014 outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia and the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions: a computational modelling analysis". The award ceremony took place in Rome on October 26, 2016.
CIDID summer intern Stephanie Stacy won an award for Best Poster Presentation at the closing session of the Fred Hutch Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), on August 12, 2016. Stephanie is a student at Williams College. During her Fred Hutch summer internship she was mentored by Trevor Bedford.
Congratulations, Stephanie!
CIDID trainee Jonathan Fintzi won first place in the oral category of the 2016 WNAR (Western North American Region of The International Biometric Society) Student Paper Competition. Jon is a graduate student at the University of Washington, mentored by Vladimir Minin and Jon Wakefield. Jon Fintzi's talk was based on this paper recently posted on arxiv.
Congratulations, Jon!
Dr. Trevor Bedford is one of 22 exceptional young scientists named as a 2016 Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences. The program "provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health." Each scholar receives four years of flexible funding to pursue their research.
Congratulations, Trevor!
Trevor Bedford and Richard Neher are one of the six winning teams in the first-ever Open Science Prize.
The Open Science Prize is a collaboration between the Wellcome Trust, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Trevor and Richard developed nextstrain, a real-time tracking tool for emerging epidemics such as ebola and zika. They will use the Phase I $80,000 prize money to further develop their prototype and submit their work for the final Phase II of the competition. One Phase II winner will receive a prize of $230,000.
Congratulations Trevor and Richard!
Click here for the Fred Hutch news release.
CIDID Graduate Student Leora Feldstein received a Fred Hutch Student/Postdoc Advisory Committee (SPAC) Travel Award to attend the 2016 annual Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists’ (CSTE) Conference in June in Anchorage, Alaska. She will present a poster on the epidemiologic investigation of the first reported outbreak of chikungunya in the U.S. Virgin Islands, 2014-2015.
Well done, Leora!
