Containing the Spread of Contagion on a Tree
Speaker: Michela Meister, Cornell University
Abstract: Contact tracing can be thought of as a race between two processes: an infection process and a tracing process. We study a simple model of infection spreading on a tree, and a tracer who stabilizes one node at a time. We focus on the question, how should the tracer choose nodes to stabilize so as to prevent the infection from spreading further? We study simple policies, which prioritize nodes based on time, infectiousness, or probability of generating new contacts. This talk is based on joint work with Jon Kleinberg.
Bio: Michela Meister is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at Cornell University, where is is advised by Jon Kleinberg. Her main interests are in algorithms and networks, and her recent work focuses on algorithmic problems in contact tracing. Before coming to Cornell, she was a software engineer at Google Research. She holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.