A team of researchers from the 51在线 College of Engineering is developing a digital tool to give government agencies, researchers and health professionals unparalleled insight into COVID-19.
The project, funded by the (NSF), will collect, synthesize and visualize comprehensive coronavirus data from around the world. Using natural language processing and machine learning, the tool will be able to identify connections in the data and give users a unique view of evolving trends related to the pandemic. USF engineers say the hope is to provide front-line researchers and policy makers access to information more quickly and more organized than ever before.
鈥淎s academic researchers are writing journal articles around the world, and hospitals are reporting cases and data related to the pandemic, we will be able to gather all of those data streams and find connections among them,鈥� said . 鈥淭hat insight is incredibly valuable in helping advance our understanding of the pandemic and could lead to improved treatment, tracking and prevention measures.鈥�
Sylvia Thomas, USF associate professor of electrical engineering.
Tempestt Neal, USF assistant professor of computer science and engineering.
Thomas, along with , have partnered with , a company that specializes in data processing and visualization. By combining Thomas and Neal鈥檚 academic research with GraphAware鈥檚 existing digital infrastructure, the team expects to quickly and efficiently create and deploy validated research-based solutions.
The $200,000 award is part of NSF鈥檚 Rapid Response Research program, designed to mobilize the scientific community to better understand and develop measures to respond to the virus. For the USF faculty members, it鈥檚 an opportunity to further their research while working toward solutions that could impact the lives of millions.
鈥淜nowing that this project has the ability to affect the entire world is really incredible,鈥� Neal said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e really looking forward to making a difference and applying what we know about data science to this problem. And I鈥檓 thrilled to have the chance to partner with Dr. Thomas, as well as our industry partners, to tackle the problems we鈥檙e facing right now.鈥�
While this project is designed to have immediate impacts on the fight against COVID-19, the tool will also be able to be applied to a variety of different areas and data streams. By interlinking information sources from around the world, the team hopes to build an open-access resource capable of detecting data trends to give front-line workers early warning of future problems.