Dr. Kenan Li is awarded the GISCoR grant from the Taylor Geospatial Institute as a Co-Investigator.

A team of experts from Saint Louis University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, representing various fields of public health, computer science, earth and atmospheric sciences, and spatial statistics, has been awarded the GISCoR (Geospatial Institute Seed grant program to stimulate Collaborative Research) grant of $200,000 for the WhereRisk multi-modal, early sensing infectious disease platform to tackle the scientific and societal grand challenges of infectious diseases.

The WhereRisk platform seeks to synthesize nontraditional health-related data, including community-level geomobility, social media discussions and internet searches, and app-based symptom tracking, to identify new patterns of infectious diseases, allowing for more efficient and effective responses by healthcare and public health systems. It will also incorporate data from other established early sensors of infectious diseases such as wastewater monitoring and satellite imagery to enhance its capabilities.

The funding of the WhereRisk platform by the Geospatial Institute Seed grant program underscores the program’s commitment to fostering collaborative research projects in geospatial science that address critical challenges facing society. The platform will be developed through a scalable and unified platform that integrates disparate data, cyberGIS, and geospatial modeling capabilities. Its success has the potential to make significant contributions to the fight against infectious diseases, and we anticipate seeing its impact on public health.

The GISCoR grant provides the team of experts, including Dr. Kenan Li, with the resources necessary to advance their research and develop a comprehensive platform that can effectively tackle the scientific and societal grand challenges of infectious diseases. This significant funding demonstrates the program’s dedication to promoting collaborative research projects in geospatial science that can make a difference in society.