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What will your community be like in 25 years?

2015.04.09. Research Symposium. The annual Research Symposium showcases the institute's cutting-edge work in information biology, with a forward glimpse of new explorations into mathematical biocomplexity. The keynote speaker, Michael Waterman, is a pioneer in computational biology and a recent winner of the Dan David Prize.

Dr. Sallie Keller

January 21, 2017
An interactive session led by Dr. Sallie Keller

Professor of Statistics and Director of the Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory within the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech

When you wake up, say, 25 years from now, what will you do? What will your community be like? More importantly, 25 years from now, what do you want to wake up to?

Vast amounts of data, generated through almost every aspect of living, offer an unprecedented opportunity to health and well-being in our communities. Communities are the places where we live, learn, work and play, where the elements of our social existence – the individuals, families, organizations, and neighborhoods – interact as we seek to achieve our individual and group shared values and goals. Every day we leave digital traces just through living - these traces capture use of government services, distances to grocery stores and health care providers, transportation networks, and other data important to creating healthy, vibrant, and safe communities. Advances in computational and statistical methods allow researchers to use these data to capture the flows of people and their activities in a community leading to a better understanding of quality of life and services while accelerating community efficiency and resiliency.

Dr. Sallie Keller is Professor of Statistics and Director of the Social and Decision Analytics Laboratory within the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech. Formerly, Professor of Statistics and Provost at University of Waterloo, Director of the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute, Professor of Statistics and William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering at Rice University, Head of the Statistical Sciences group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Professor of Statistics at Kansas State University, and Statistics Program Director at the National Science Foundation. Dr. Keller, her research staff, and their students work with local communities to bring data science to the 3000+ local communities across the US, starting with Virginia and leveraging the Land Grant Universities infrastructure.