BIG DATA

A leading authority in using computer models to predict and plan for public health emergencies, Dr. Nathaniel Hupert has been named director of the new Preparedness Modeling Unit at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He remains associate professor of public health and medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and associate attending physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell in New York City.

In his new role, Dr. Hupert will support preparedness modeling activities both within the CDC and among its federal, state, local, and academic partners with the aim of helping formulate policies to safeguard the public's health before, during and after emergency situations, such as infectious disease outbreaks, natural disasters, environmental exposures, climate change and bioterrorism.

Since 2000, Dr. Hupert has led a number of federally funded projects to develop improved tools and logistics for mass prophylaxis, bioterrorism response, and health system preparedness for surge capacity. Hupert collaborated with computational staff and used systems at the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing (CAC). His research team's reports and models are available on the Web site of the CDC and American Hospital Association, and are used by states across the U.S. for preparedness planning. Dr. Hupert was one of three academic researchers to serve on the Anthrax Modeling Working Group of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary's Council on Public Health Emergency Preparedness. He has lectured and given satellite and Web broadcasts for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the CDC on mass prophylaxis and physicians' role in bioterrorism response.

Dr. Hupert is co-director of Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College's joint Institute for Disease and Disaster Preparedness, whose mission is to advance the field of computational public health by applying engineering approaches to a range of public health response logistics problems, from U.S. emergency preparedness to scale-up of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Cornell Center for Advanced Computing (CAC) is a leader in high-performance computing system, application, and data solutions that enable research success.