Is the U.S. ready for another pandemic?
It’s a question members of Congress convened last week to tackle. And one of Northeastern’s own machine learning experts, Mauricio Santillana, a professor of physics and network science, was on Capitol Hill to help shed light on U.S. preparedness from the standpoint of how to levy big data to create better predictive models.
Santillana, who is part of Northeastern’s Machine Intelligence Group for the Betterment of Health and the Environment, testified last week before the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense to help, among other things, “explore preparedness needs and efforts, new solutions to improve biosurveillance and data modernization,” the commission said.
The commission is tasked with making recommendations to Congress to better fortify the federal government’s biodefense infrastructure. Biodefense is concerned with any and all threats to human beings, animals or agriculture.
Speaking with Northeastern Global News, Santillana painted a concerning portrait of the government’s ability to respond to so-called biological threats—detailing a lax and “reactive” posture when it comes to planning for, and pre-empting, hazards like the kind posed by COVID-19.
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Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University
