Presymptomatic transmission is a key determinant of the controllability of respiratory viruses. This nice study used household data to quantify presymptomatic transmission of influenza and Omicron. Important findings with implications for modeling and control. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Dont miss the ESPIDAM summer program in June 2026 in Stockholm, covering many key concepts for ID modelling: stochastic models, AI for ID control, nowcasting and forecasting, phylodynamics, data analysis, network models, within-host models, health economics www.statistics.su.se/english/divi...

Excited to share a new study published in PNAS! @pnas.org We reconstructed the early, cryptic spatial spread of 2009 H1N1 influenza and SARS-CoV-2 across US metropolitan areas. Link👉https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2518051123 #PandemicPreparedness #InfectiousDisease #HumanMobility

2025 was a challenging year for many of us. As the year comes to a close, let's pause to recognize and celebrate every accomplishment and milestone, big or small. Each step forward matters. As we head into 2026, let’s keep climbing with aspiration, resilience, and strength!

Glad to share our latest study, led by Han Yong Wunrow @hwunrow.bsky.social, on estimating time-varying reproduction numbers (Rt) using data assimilation methods, now published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface! Link: royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

I am teaching Introduction to Network Science for a third year at Columbia Mailman! @cupublichealth.bsky.social Very grateful to have positive evaluations from students with diverse backgrounds. Welcome to join this small-size, engaged course if you are interested in networks and systems thinking!

Very interesting study on respiratory virus transmission in schools! "Prolonged exposure in shared, poorly ventilated spaces, which potentially includes several infectious sources, drives respiratory virus transmission more than close contact." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Welcome to join Columbia Mailman @cupublichealth.bsky.social seminar series on infectious disease modeling featuring Prof. Mark Jit @markjit.bsky.social from NYU on 12/16 Tue at 12 pm EST! Open to the public over Zoom. For more information and registration: 👉 events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev...

Grateful to @natcomms.nature.com for featuring our AMRO inference study as one of the Editors’ Highlights in #PublicHealth: www.nature.com/collections/...

Sunny and warm in San Diego. Preparing for #EPIDEMICS10 next week!

Sharing our new study on identifying asymptomatic carriers of antimicrobial-resistant organisms (AMROs) in hospitals, out in @natcomms.nature.com. We combine patient mobility, clinical cultures, EHR, and genomics to identify hidden AMRO carriers. #AMR #HAI #HospitalEpi Link 👉 rdcu.be/eQKKF 1/

A super interesting study on how ants alter their nest networks to prevent epidemics! Network topology metrics were used to measure the effect on disease transmission. www.science.org/doi/full/10....

Excellent work on the ecology and spread of H5N1 in North America 👉

Fantastic talk by Dr. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-Chief of Science, on the future of scientific research. Especially inspiring to hear how many scientific giants pushed forward even when others tried to stop them. In times of uncertainty and challenge, do the work.

Our group is presenting at the MIDAS Network Annual Meeting! I will present on reconstructing the early spatial spread of pandemics in the US. Dr. Qing Yao will discuss the use of GNN to predict adaptive mobility for improving epidemic forecasts. Welcome to join us! @midas-network.bsky.social

Oof, this is a tough one...

Fall is coming. Enjoy a warm and colorful afternoon in the woods. 🍁

Hurricanes don’t stop at the coast. Our recent study, published in Environ Res Lett, shows inland communities are less likely to evacuate, leaving them more vulnerable as storms like Helene bring historic flooding and loss of life. Paper 👉 doi.org/10.1088/1748...

🚨 JOB ALERT! Our group is recruiting a postdoc to develop novel methodologies for early outbreak detection and inference using AI/ML, modeling, and data science. This is a multi-year position providing stable research support. Welcome to apply and share with others! 👉 apply.interfolio.com/173722

So proud to support Nidhi Ram’s presentation in the Science Research Fellows program! Nidhi is a freshman and an SFR fellow, a prestigious four-year designation for some of Columbia’s most promising science students. Truly impressed by the intellect, maturity and academic ability of all fellows.

A small team of us at Columbia (Sen Pei, Qing Yao, and me) collaborated with @washingtonpost.com to create a data-driven story about Hurricane Helene flooding and lack of evacuation added to the severe impacts: www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Are we prepared for intensifying and expanding disasters caused by climate change? How to plan for floods that we’ve never seen in our lives? Read this fantastic story in the Washington Post, including our mobility analysis during Hurricane Helene in 2024. 1/ www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

First day at SMB 2025 @smbmathbiology.bsky.social in the beautiful city of Edmonton! Today, we have a minisymposium "Scenario Modeling to Inform Public Policymaking" (10:20 am and 4 pm) with excellent talks on bridging mathematical models and policymaking. Welcome to stop by and join the discussion!

Excited to see this paper out in Science Advances, led by Prof. Alan Cohen @cusciofhealth.bsky.social. The definition of health should go beyond being free of disease. Our human body works as a complex dynamical system, and measuring health requires a perspective from complex systems.

Sharing our new study out in PLoS Comput Biol. We developed a behavior-driven epidemic model to generate neighborhood-level COVID-19 forecasts across NYC. We used mobile foot traffic data to measure how and where people mix and forecast local spread. Read here: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

So glad to have @jgyou.bsky.social give an intriguing lecture on contagion modeling and network inference in our network science class!

We are Science of Health, a collaborative initiative led by faculty from Columbia University—scientists, physicians, and theorists transforming how we understand health, from cellular biology to daily life. Our aim: nothing less than a revolution in biomedicine. #SystemsOfHealth #HealthRevolution

It was great to have @danielmalinsky.bsky.social give an excellent lecture on casual graph discovery in my network science class today!

I decide to put down my work and have some ice cream tonight.

Welcome to join Columbia Mailman seminar series on infectious disease modeling featuring Prof. Joshua Warren from Yale on 2/11 at 1 pm EST! Open to the public over Zoom. For more information and registration: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev...

Thinking about the research environment for early-career PIs (like me). Thanks to rising costs and decreasing funding, groups already have to operate under the critical condition that can barely support daily work. Any tiny perturbations may collapse this system. Now comes this huge disruption...

Happening today at 1 pm EST! Register here to join over zoom: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev...

We will kick off the Columbia Mailman seminar series on infectious disease modeling in the spring semester with a fantastic talk by Prof. Marc Lipsitch from @harvardchanschool.bsky.social ! Welcome to join in person or over Zoom on 1/21. Register here: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev...

Maybe linking climate change to money is the best way to convince some people that climate change is real.

So glad to be back in Pittsburgh for a few days! We went to places we lived and where we used to take our baby. Feel taking a time machine going back in time. Surreal!

Hey, students at Columbia Mailman, I am teaching Introduction to Network Science in Spring 2025. Welcome to join us and have fun playing with networks! This year we will have three fantastic lectures talking about gene regulation networks, causal inference, and high-order networks.

Welcome to join the talk by Prof. Gwen Knight from LSHTM tomorrow! Register here: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev...

Any recommendations on sciency podcasts for listening during commuting?

Welcome to ColumbiaMSPH Seminar Series on Infectious Disease Modeling featuring @gmknght.bsky.social from LSHTM on Dec 10 (zoom open to the public). Register to join! For more details and registration: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev... Future events: www.publichealth.columbia.edu/about-us/eve...

Scientists who have studied #H5N1 #birdflu for years are flummoxed by the lack of severe cases among the 55 human cases the US has confirmed this year. I talked to lots to explore the theories of what's going on. www.statnews.com/2024/12/02/b...

My lab is recruiting students! We work on computational approaches to infectious disease challenges, ranging from healthcare-associated infections to emerging diseases - with a splash of global and rural health. Apply here: vetmed.wsu.edu/education/gr... or contact me #episky

Post-holiday Monday working on backlogged works.

Welcome to the Columbia Mailman Seminar Series on Infectious Disease Modeling featuring @anaisabelbento.bsky.social on Dec 3 (hybrid and open to the public). Register to join over Zoom! For registration: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev... Future events: publichealth.columbia.edu/about-us/eve...

There is still time to register for the seminar by Dr. Trovao @nidiatrovao.bsky.social from NIH/FIC, happening at tomorrow 1 pm EST (in-person and over zoom, open to everyone). Register here: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev...

Reminder that the deadline is on December 6th. Email me with any questions.

I'm just learning about Starter Packs. Here's a great place to find them! blueskydirectory.com

Unfortunately, this is an inevitable conundrum of doing public health work - if you prevented the problem, some people will ask, what did you do?

Welcome to ColumbiaMSPH Dean's Seminar Series on Infectious Disease Modeling featuring @nidiatrovao.bsky.social on Nov 26 (hybrid and open to the public). Register to join over Zoom! For registration: events.columbia.edu/cal/event/ev... Future events: publichealth.columbia.edu/about-us/eve...

Will there be a ranking for starter packs? 🤔 Such an explosion of information.