Benjamin Althouse

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Hi!

I'm Ben Althouse and I'm interested in the spread of disease in populations. I focus on mathematical models (mechanistic differential equation models, mostly) to model observed transmission phenomena. I'm also interested in network models and incorporating economics into dynamical disease models as there is a clear link between disease and economic productivity both at the macro and individual level which is mostly heretofore unexplored. I also work on a smattering of other projects mostly focused around statistics, machine learning and time series analysis. I have also used Google search data to predict infectious disease outbreaks as well as to examine seasonality in mental health and quitting smoking.

I hope to learn about agent based modeling while at Santa Fe as it's an area I haven't explored yet and would love to learn their particular eccentricities. I've got a few projects in mind (examining measles or influenza transmission USA-wide through coupling large cities, the effects of demographic shifts on disease transmission, ...) but I find many projects exciting and want to hear new ideas.

You can check out my website here, or you can email me: balthous@jhsph.edu.