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Maridulu Budyari Gumal

UNSW wins international COVID-19 data science competition

UNSW Sydney academics have been recognised for their open-source COVOID software built to model COVID-19 transmission and intervention strategies.

A team of UNSW academics from the Centre for Big Data Research in Health (CBDRH) in collaboration with the South Western Sydney Clinic School (SWSCS) have won CovidR, a global competition assessing the contributions of the R software platform to the COVID-19 pandemic.

CBDRH industry PhD Scholar Oisin Fitzgerald and Lecturer Dr Mark Hanly, joined by Senior Research Fellow at SWSCS Dr Tim Churches were awarded for their open-source COVOID software built to model COVID-19 transmission and intervention strategies.

COVOID stands for COVID-19 Opensource Infection Dynamics, and the software provides advanced simulation modelling capabilities for COVID-19 spread and control, focusing particularly on intervention scenarios to enable exploration of post-lockdown ‘exit strategies’ which are now so important in Australia and other countries.

Dr Mark Hanly presented an invited talk on the COVOID R package at the European R Users Meeting (eRUM) 2020.

A video of Dr Mark’s talk is available at this link: https://youtu.be/yHJ7RSv6nio?t=5757

This article was first published on the UNSW Medicine website.

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