This Reading Group will focus on epidemic models, networks and statistical inference — beginning with three talks on open questions and new developments in each of the aforementioned topics. The second part of the reading group will consist in an open-ended discussion on the challenges of bridging network models with the reality of (missing) data.

Agenda:
2pm to 3:30pm Speakers: 

• Jorge Velasco-Hernández (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México): 20 min talk +10 min discussions: challenges and opportunities in epidemiology
• Yeganeh Alimohammadi (Stanford) 15 min: Network models in epidemiology
• Jason Xu (Duke University) & Fan Bu (UCLA): 45 min: stochastic epidemics, inference with missing data, and emerging epidemic and network datasets

4pm to 5pm: Discussion on open problems