The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic upended our societies and re-shaped the way we go about our day-to-day lives—from how we work and interact to the way we buy groceries and attend school. In this talk, I will present a series of studies quantifying how our behavior, mobility patterns, and social networks shaped and were shaped by COVID-19. I will outline a strategy for preventing future outbreaks from growing into pandemics and, using the lessons learned from COVID-19, discuss how we might balance the ethical and privacy considerations around high-resolution data with their critical role in responding to epidemics.
Professor Scarpino is the director of AI + life sciences at Northeastern University and a professor of the practice in health and computer sciences. Prior to joining Northeastern, he was the vice president of pathogen surveillance at The Rockefeller Foundation, chief strategy officer at Dharma Platform, and co-founded a data science initiative called Global.health.