The IV AMMCS International Conference
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada | August 20-25, 2017
AMMSCS 2017 Plenary Talk
TBD
Alessandro Vespignani (Northeastern University)
Recent years have witnessed the development of data driven models of infectious diseases rooted in the combination of largescale data
mining techniques, computational approaches and mathematical modeling. Although these models are increasingly used to support
public-health decisions they are often under debate by only considering their value as forecasting tools. Here I will discuss, by using
specific modeling examples of the H1N1 pandemic and the West Africa Ebola epidemic, how computational models can be used in real
time to provide situational awareness, intervention planning and projections, and the identification of factors that fundamentally
influence the course of an outbreak.
Prof. Vespignani received his undergraduate degree and Ph.D., both in physics
and both from the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” in 1990 and 1994
respectively. He completed his postdoctoral research at Yale University and
Leiden University. Prof. Vespignani worked at the International Center for
Theoretical Physics (UNESCO) in Trieste and at the University of Paris-Sud in
France as a member of the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS)
before moving to Indiana University in 2004. Before joining Northeastern
University Vespignani was J.H.Rudy Professor of Informatics and Computing at
Indiana University and serving as the Director of the Center for Complex
Networks and Systems Research and the Associate Director of the Pervasive
Technology Institute. Vespignani is elected fellow of the American Physical
Society, member of the Academy of Europe, and fellow of the Institute for
Quantitative Social Sciences at Harvard University. He is serving in the
board/leadership of a variety of professional association and journals and the
Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation.