How do fine modifications to social distancing measures and social behavior really affect virus spread? Getting a real-time answer is currently not possible, but one tool that can help is Safe Blues - a framework for simulating virus spread by passing a virtual, safe ‘virus-like’ token via cellular devices.

This privacy-preserving framework, combined with statistics and machine learning, can potentially yield strong predictive power and allow health authorities to track the (potential) spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 much more effectively. This talk will give an overview of the Safe Blues framework while also discussing lessons learnt from the mathematical modelling of COVID-19.

Watch the recording

Recording of "Estimation and control of epidemics via Safe Blues" talk (YouTube, 41min)

Meet the presenter

Associate Professor Yoni Nazarathy from the School of Mathematics and Physics, specialises in data science, probability, and statistics. His specific research interests include scheduling, control, queueing theory, and machine learning.

He has been at UQ for nearly a decade, teaching in the Master of Data Science program and working on research. Prior to his previous academic positions in Melbourne and The Netherlands, he worked in the aerospace industry in Israel.

In recent years, he has also been heavily involved with primary and secondary mathematics education and is the co-founder of an EdTech mathematics organisations called One on Epsilon. He is also the co-author of an introductory data science book Statistics with Julia.

Like many other mathematics and physics academics, he took great interest in epidemics at the start of COVID-19 and in addition to his co-authored Safe Blues program, he co-organises a weekly pandemic (Zoom) seminar at the School of Mathematics and Physics.

About BrisScience

BrisScience is a monthly lecture series that brings science out of the labs and to the people, making it accessible to all – from scientists, to scientists-at-heart.

Run by The University of Queensland, BrisScience has been delivering engaging lectures on diverse topics from local and international scientists for over a decade.

BrisScience speakers are leaders in their given fields and deliver dynamic presentations based on cutting-edge research.

The University of Queensland has been running BrisScience since 2005, bringing the best and brightest scientific minds to the people of Brisbane – from early career researchers to Nobel Laureates!

Time6:30pm to 7:30pm (light refreshments 7:30-8pm)
VenueThe Edge, State Library of Queensland, Stanley Place, South Bank
CostFree

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