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WORMS SPONSORED WEBINAR SERIES

  • 1.  WORMS SPONSORED WEBINAR SERIES

    Posted 05-07-2020 13:47

      Register for WORMS Sponsored Webinar

      DATE: May 15, 2020
      TIME: 1pm – 2pm EST / 10am – 11am PST



    Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the way people live, work, and interact around the globe.  In this webinar, I will share some of my current COVID-related research, and lay out some challenges to the OR community about work/life balance.  I have used a data farming approach in my research to conduct large-scale experiments on a stochastic model of infectious disease propagation.  The model tracks individual outcomes, while avoiding the need for an a priori connectivity graph for all members of the population. Accordingly, it is readily scalable to large populations-we have been able to run it for 350 million people, the approximate size of the US population-while preserving the impact of variability during the critical early stages of an outbreak. Unlike many other models, it reveals behaviors similar to the historical courses of disease propagation: while many outbreaks fizzle out quickly, some flare into more widespread epidemics.  Such results may better inform decision makers about risks, and assess the impacts associated with different intervention efforts.  The data farming approach has broad applicability to other types of models as well.  After discussing this model, I will take a philosophical turn and cast work/life balance issues as an optimization problem.  The "great reset" of the current crisis offers us an opportunity to change the dialogue (and implicit assumptions) about gender roles in the home and workplace. This applies at many levels-for the individual or family unit, throughout the work organization, and in our society at large.  By applying OR principles as we collectively navigate through this crisis, I challenge not just WORMS members, but the larger INFORMS community, to act with intent to create a path toward a better world.
     


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    Maga Khachatryan
    CEO, MagAnalytics
    2020 WORMS President

    Web: www.maganalytics.com
    email: info@maganalytics.com
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