Behavior Matters, Whatever Next: Computational Psychology for Computational Epidemiology
Speaker: Mark Orr, University of Virginia
Abstract: For our presentation, we assume human behavior matters in determining the dynamics of biological epidemics and ask how should we model human behavior in the context of computational epidemiology. Specifically, this talk provides three things: 1. a framework from which to appreciate the varieties and limitations of modeling options, methods, and techniques; 2. some examples from computational psychology that illustrate the modeling of social systems; and 3. a pipeline under development for integrating computational psychology at scale in the epidemiological context.
Bio: Mark Orr is a research associate professor in the Network Systems Science and Advanced Computing division. Orr originally trained as a cognitive psychologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Orr received augmentation to this training with postdoctoral fellowships in computational modeling (Carnegie Mellon), neuroscience (Albert Einstein College of Medicine), and epidemiology/complex systems (Columbia University). Over the past decade, he has become heavily involved in understanding dynamic processes and drivers of risky behavior and decision-making, primarily in a public health context, at the scale of the individual and populations. Orr is currently expanding these ideas into other contexts and for other applications (e.g. DoD, DOE, DHS).