By Hans Kaper
Yesterday was the first day of a summer school on “Dynamics and Data in the COVID-19 Pandemic.” The program is organized by the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) in San Jose, Calif., and the Mathematics and Climate Research Network (MCRN), with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The school is a six-week virtual event, and all interactions will take place on the meeting platform Sococo.
What is the summer school about?
The topic of the summer school is COVID-19 and the mathematical modeling and analysis of the spread of infectious diseases. Data collection and data assimilation (the integration of data into models) are integral parts of the effort.
Who are the participants?
Participants include five undergraduates, 17 students in transition between undergraduate and graduate school, and 19 graduate students, with five mentors, 10 leaders, and two assistants. The 41 students (U.S. citizens or permanent residents) were selected from over 500 applicants. Leadership consists of faculty members at U.S. universities, many of whom specialize in some aspect of dynamical systems theory. Participants hail from four time zones that span the continental U.S.
What did we do on the first day?
At 11:00 am (all times are EDT), Chris Jones (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) welcomed all participants. Jones explained the goals of the summer school, offered a brief summary of its creation, and demonstrated some of the features of Sococo, Zoom, and other platforms that will be utilized in the coming six weeks.
All participants have an “office” in Sococo, and after brief introductions everyone had an opportunity to get to know their neighbors during a “get-acquainted” session. This also offered people a chance to familiarize themselves with the intricacies of moving from one place to another in the virtual office environment.
At 12:15 pm, everyone gathered in the “all-hands” room to view a movie, called “Simulating an Epidemic,” via Watch2Gether. The movie depicted the results of numerical simulations using susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) and agent-based models, thus demonstrating the dynamics of an evolving epidemic under various behavioral and intervention strategies.
The afternoon session began with a data hunt. Participants split into 14 groups, and each group was asked to choose a region (country, county, or municipality), find COVID-19 statistics for that region, and assess their reliability. After a 15-minute tai chi session, the groups reported their findings during an all-hands meeting. The selected regions included countries (France, Sweden, Russia), states (Texas, Florida, Maine, North Carolina), counties (Montgomery County, Md.; Hennepin County, Minn; Washington, DC), and regions (the Midwest, based on aggregator websites).
The second part of the afternoon was devoted to a series of 11 articles on COVID-19, which had appeared in the May and June issues of SIAM News. Also included were the drafts of two additional articles, which will publish in the July/August combined issue of SIAM News. As part of the first night’s homework assignment, participants each chose an article, read it, and commented on it the following morning.
The day ended at 6 pm with a virtual reception.
Hans Kaper, founding chair of the SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth and editor-in-chief of SIAM News, is affiliate faculty in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Georgetown University.