ARC23 Speaker Harry Hochheiser
Computational Challenges and COVID-19: the View from the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) Coordination Center
Harry Hochheiser, associate professor, Pitt Department of Biomedical Informatics and Director, Models of Infectious Disease Study (MIDAS) Coordination Center
Abstract
The Model of Infectious Disease Study (MIDAS) is a global network of scientists and practitioners who develop and use computational models to improve understanding of infectious disease dynamics. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a huge increase in interest in MIDAS, with membership growing from under 200 researchers to more than 800. Housed at the University of Pittsburgh since 2019, the MIDAS Coordination Center (MCC) works to support this community through research, training, promotion, and service. Building on research efforts aimed at increasing the reproducibility of infectious disease modeling and service efforts including provision of high-performance computing capabilities, the MCC response to the COVID-19 pandemic included significant data capture and curation efforts aimed at establishing a world-wide archive of public health data; the creation of a curated data catalog and metadata resources aimed at providing FAIR COVID data; and support for the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub.
Biography
Harry Hochheiser is engaged in a broad range of research efforts unified by the common theme of making biomedical data more useful for clinicians, researchers, and the public. Recent efforts, funded by several agencies from the NIH along with industry partners, include the development of tools applying natural language processing to cancer surveillance and research; application of practical and explainable predictive models to challenges in pediatric critical care; and a large coordination center for infectious disease modeling research. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics, the Intelligent Systems Program, and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, where he is also the Director of the Biomedical Informatics Training Program.