UCLA mathematics profs. Andrea Bertozzi and Mason Porter have just received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support their “Analysis of Multiscale Network Models for the Spread of COVID-19” research. This year-long grant will support the use of mathematical models to track patterns among the spread of COVID-19 and provide data for effective leadership. This award is co-funded with the Applied Mathematics program and the Computational Mathematics program (Division of Mathematical Sciences), and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities (OMA) program.
Below is the award abstract:
“The current pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has upended the daily lives of more than a billion people worldwide, and governments are struggling with the task of responding to the spread of the disease. Uncertainty in transmission rates and the outcomes of social distancing, “shelter-at-home” executive orders, and other interventions have created unprecedented challenges to the United States health care system. This project will address these issues directly using advanced mathematical modeling from dynamical systems, stochastic processes, and networks. The mathematical models, which are formulated with the specific features of COVID-19 in mind, will provide insights that are critical to people on the front lines who need to make recommendations for intervention strategies and human-behavior patterns to best mitigate the spread of this disease in a timely manner. The project will train a postdoctoral scholar, a PhD student, and two undergraduate students in the research needed to solve these complex problems.”
