Computational Epidemiology

I study the spread of infectious diseases using large agent-based simulations. In particular, I use the Object-oriented Platform for People in Infectious Epidemics (OPPIE) to simulate the spread of infectious diseases within the United States and analyze the impact of pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions. OPPIE is a stochastic, agent-based simulation system that explicitly represents the daily movements and interactions of synthetic individuals, as they move about on a synthetic landscape consisting of millions of locations. The simulation computes the spatially-distributed spread of contagious diseases by probabilistic disease transmission based on the contact times between infectious and susceptible individuals. The detail demographics of the population and geospatial representation of a region allow us to analyze the impact of various mitigation strategies including vaccines, antivirals, closures, facemasks, hygiene, isolation, quarantine, fear and other changes in human behavior.

In addition, I use the Healtcare Simulation (HCSim) system to study the impact of mass casualties on hospital resources resulting from either natural disasters or intentional attacks. HCSim is an agent-based model that simulates the geographic representation of hospitals within the United States and provides gross impact of hospitalized cases on hospital resources.