The National Science Foundation has awarded emergency grants to two teams of Princeton researchers developing ways to better track and contain pandemics including COVID-19.
John Sullivan, Office of Engineering Communications April 13, 2020
One effort, led by Kyle Jamieson, an associate professor of computer science, will work to develop a system using cellphones to help public health officials quickly track the contacts of people diagnosed with diseases such as COVID-19, while preserving privacy. That ability could become critical in efforts to contain the disease after the initial surge of cases passes through the population. The second effort, led by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and by H. Vincent Poor, Princeton’s interim dean of engineering, will expand a mathematical model that allows public officials to measure the effect that mutations and countermeasures have on the spread of the disease. The model, which could be used for any pandemic, would allow governments to gauge the effectiveness of measures such as social distancing and quarantines before implementing them.
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