Since its establishment 20 years ago, the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering has built a reputation for developing innovative solutions to solve real-world problems. This history has placed the Luddy School in a unique position to take a leadership role as we battle the spread of coronavirus and COVID-19.
Researchers at the Luddy School are already engaged in multi-faceted efforts to combat the virus and the disease. Some of those efforts include:
Support for high-performance parallel computations for simulations and data analytics for both COVID-19 propagation and possible drug candidates is being provided by the Luddy Digital Science Center and Professors Judy Qiu and Geoffrey Fox. This uses major computational resources at DoE and NSF facilities, and is part of a collaboration with the University of Virginia, Rutgers University, Stanford University, and others.
Find out more about IU's support
The Crisis Technologies Innovation Lab is providing analytics and data science to help with the response to COVID-19 through a collaboration with the IU Business Research Center, Disaster Technologies, Microsoft, FEMA, and federal and state emergency managers.
Machine learning techniques are providing generalizable insights for different research domains and are allowing Xiaozhong Liu, Johan Bollen, and YY Ahn to create models of COVID-19 panic diffusion dynamics and comparing various panic diffusion models at different stages of disease transmission and awareness.
The FAMES Lab and Luddy Makerspaces are using their resources to support the creation of personal protective equipment for medical personnel fighting COVID-19 in Indiana. The effort is being led by Alexander Gumennik and Christian McKay.
Through the use of supercomputing and machine learning, researchers like Paul Macklin are using simulation models of SARS-Cov-2 viral dynamics to identify potential biomarkers and better understand the lag between initial infections and clinical symptoms while also exploring why so many infectious patients are asymptomatic.
Research on AI approaches to reconstructing viral genomes without using reference genomes, a project led by Raj Acharya, Rudy Professor of Engineering, Computer Science and Informatics, is creating algorithms that will reconstruct the COVID-19 virus haplotypes.
Using data from the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, models are being developed on how available information and misinformation affects the spread of COVID-19. The project is a collaboration between Luis Rocha, postdoc fellow Sofia Teixeira, and the IU School of Public Health.
The Pervasive Technology Institute’s National Science Foundation-funded Jetstream cloud system, initially developed by Executive Director Craig Stewart, is being made available through the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment for use in research related to COVID-19. PTI also is providing resources in fields such as bioinformatics, cybersecurity, and data analysis.
A longitudinal study of the psychological effects of concern about the coronavirus is being conducted by Professor of Cognitive Science, Psychology, and Informatics Peter Todd.
Dealing with the everyday realities of the COVID-19 outbreak is challenging, and researchers are using surveys to learn how people are coping with the stress, family changes, and health issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Gregory Lewis is collaborating with IU’s Kinsey Institute on the project.
The Mapping Science exhibit from Distinguished Professor of Engineering and Information Science Katy Borner features several maps and macroscopes that show how diseases spread over time.
