Welcome to the Computational Epidemiology Research Laboratory (CERL)
at the
University of North Texas.
CERL was established in 2004 to conduct and promote research in computational epidemiology.
New UNT Center for Computational Epidemiology
UNT Press Release.
August 27, 2008
The new Center for Computational Epidemiology, with a $473,000 grant from
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will continue work begun in
2005 by a team from the UNT Department of Geography, Computer Science, and
Biology, and the UNT Health Science Center's Department of Biostatistics.
The first order of business for the new center is construction of a
simulation chamber that will be used to develop models and to train students
and public health officials. Because of the computational power needed to
run complex models of this type, a computer cluster will be installed at
UNT's Discovery Park to run the simulation chamber. In addition, two
portable visualization systems that can be used to view the simulation
chamber operations will be housed at Discovery Park and at UNT's Health
Science Center in Fort Worth.
The Center will continue the work of the Computational Epidemiology Research
Laboratory begun in 2005 at UNT. The team already has developed working
models to estimate the pattern of transmission of diseases such as
tuberculosis, human papillomavirus and influenza.
The ability to predict how a disease might manifest itself in the population at large is essential
for identifying disease monitoring, intervention and control strategies.
Epidemiologists traditionally rely on data that has been collected during previous outbreaks.
However, for newly emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases, such data is often unavailable or outdated.
Changes in population composition and dynamics require the design of models and social networks
that bring together knowledge of
specific infectious diseases and demographics and geography of the region under investigation.
At CERL,
faculty and students from inter-disciplinary domains work together to develop new scientific
methods that enhance the comprehension of intricate interplay between disease and population.
Recent News
- to appear
Tamara Schneider, Armin R Mikler and Marty O'Neill, Computational Tools for Evaluating Bioemergency Contingency Plans in Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Disaster Management/. New Forest, England, September 2009. - to appear
Tamara Schneider, Olivia G. Loza and Armin R. Mikler, Computational Epidemiology: Generating Synthetic Cities in Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Information and Knowledge Engineering (IKE09). Las Vegas, NV, July 2009. - to appear
Tina Johnson and Armin R Mikler, The Elusive R_0 - Chasing the Reproductive Number in Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BIOCOMP09). Las Vegas, NV, July 2009. - to appear
Tamara Schneider, Armin R Mikler and Marty O'Neill, Analyzing Response Feasibility for Bioemergencies in Proceedings of the 2009 International Joint Conferences on System Biology, Bioinformatics and Intelligent Computing (IJCBS09). Shanghai, China, August 2009. - to appear
Courtney D. Corley, Armin R. Mikler, Karan P. Singh and Diane J. Cook, Monitoring Influenza Trends through Mining Social Media in Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BIOCOMP09). Las Vegas, NV, July 2009. - to appear
Courtney D. Corley and Armin R. Mikler, A Discrete-Time Epidemic Model to Analyze Impact of Age and Gender Targeted Interventions in Proceedings of the 2009 International Conference on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BIOCOMP09). Las Vegas, NV, July 2009. - to appear
Armin R Mikler, Angel Bravo-Salgado and Courtney D. Corley, Global Stochastic Contact Modeling of Infectious Diseases in Proceedings of the 2009 International Joint Conferences on System Biology, Bioinformatics and Intelligent Computing (IJCBS09). Shanghai, China, August 2009. - to appear
Courtney D. Corley and Armin R. Mikler, A Computational Framework to Study Public Health Epidemiology in Proceedings of the 2009 International Joint Conferences on System Biology, Bioinformatics and Intelligent Computing (IJCBS09). Shanghai, China, August 2009. - NEW Center for Computational Epidemiology continues work of CERL with $473,000 grant from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. UNT Press Release
- CD Corley, AR Mikler, DJ Cook and KP Singh Dynamic intimate contact social networks and epidemic interventions. to appear Int. J. Functional Informatics and Personalized Medicine 2008
- Professor Mikler gives keynote at EpiGrid 2007 in Hagen, Germany
- Courtney Corley gives talk Social epidemiology and intimate social networks at EpiGrid 2007 in Hagen, Germany
- Welcome new system administrator Angel
- Generating social networks of intimate contacts for the study of public health intervention strategies Accepted BIBE07