Live webcast
Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Time: 10:00-11:30 AM Pacific
Submit questions for our speakers here.
Nobel Laureate Saul Perlmutter, Director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, and Michael Lu, Dean of the Berkeley School of Public Health, will host and moderate a roundtable discussion with Berkeley researchers who are mobilizing computing and data science for COVID-19 response and recovery, from helping local public health officials track the pandemic to predicting and addressing its impacts on employment and elections.
This video event will feature Berkeley experts who are at the center of these critical efforts, which include 1) Developing tools to enable local health departments to predict hospital ICU needs and plan interventions, 2) Finding better and faster ways to get critical supplies to healthcare workers and citizens, and 3) Predicting and addressing impacts on employment and elections.
Featured speakers include:
- Jennifer Chayes, Associate Provost, Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and Dean, School of Information
- Saul Perlmutter, Director, Berkeley Institute for Data Science, 2011 Nobel Laureate in Physics
- Michael Lu, Dean, School of Public Health
- Maya Petersen, Associate Professor, Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health
- Michael Eisen, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development, Molecular & Cell Biology
- Sandrine Dudoit, Professor and Chair, Department of Statistics
- Max Shen, Chancellor's Professor and Department Chair, Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
- Emmanuel Saez, Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Equitable Growth
- Henry Brady, Dean and Professor of Political Science and Public Policy
- Kathy Yelick, Associate Dean for Research, Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences
This event will be the first in a series of conversations hosted by Berkeley's Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS) to provide an early look at what researchers are investigating and discovering as they mobilize computing and data science to take on the COVID-19 challenge.
The discussion is part of a new live, online video series, Berkeley Conversations: COVID-19, featuring Berkeley scholars from a range of disciplines.
Speaker(s)
Saul Perlmutter
Saul Perlmutter is a 2011 Nobel Laureate, sharing the prize in Physics for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe. He is the director of BIDS, a professor of physics at UC Berkeley (where he holds the Franklin W. and Karen Weber Dabby Chair), and a senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the leader of the international Supernova Cosmology Project, and executive director of the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics. His undergraduate degree was from Harvard and his PhD from UC Berkeley. In addition to other awards and honors, he is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Perlmutter has also written popular articles, and has appeared in numerous PBS, Discovery Channel, and BBC documentaries. His interest in teaching scientific-style critical thinking for scientists and non-scientists alike led to Berkeley courses on Sense and Sensibility and Science and Physics & Music.

Michael C. Lu
Michael C. Lu, MD, MS, MPH, is the Dean of Berkeley Public Health. Dr. Lu was formerly the Director of the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau in the Obama Administration, and recipient of the Hubert H Humphrey Award for Service to America. A graduate of the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program, he has been voted one of the Best Doctors in America since 2005.

Jennifer Chayes
Jennifer Chayes is the Associate Provost who leads UC Berkeley's Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and the Dean of the School of Information. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research areas include biomedicine applications and epidemiological modeling.