Departments Network Science Institute

Students sitting on the grass on theBoston campus

Jump into June with these events

Build your career intelligence. Examine the future of epidemiology. Plan the perfect beach day. Here is a list of events to make the most of early June now that the summery weather has arrived.

by Ian Thomsen May 28, 2021

Visitors wear face masks while watching a presentation in a theater at the Aquarium of the Pacific on its first day of reopening to public in Long Beach, Calif. on March 16, 2021.

How soon will the COVID-19 pandemic end? It depends.

“It could be a matter of weeks,” says Alessandro Vespignani, whose team has created models projecting possible future outbreaks of COVID-19 in the U.S. for the CDC. But that depends on whether people’s real behavior continues to align with the Northeastern team’s scenarios.

by Eva Botkin-Kowacki May 5, 2021

Sculpture meets science when Albert-László Barabási makes art from network patterns

Albert-László Barabási wanted to be a sculptor. Then he discovered physics and pioneered a new field of network science. Now, the Northeastern professor has art exhibits displaying his work in both Hungary and Germany.

by Eva Botkin-Kowacki April 29, 2021

Developing new disease treatments can take years. That's why Northeastern researcher Deisy Morselli Gysi and her colleagues looked at existing drugs to treat COVID-19. And now they have four strong contenders. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

Existing drugs may hold the key to curing COVID‑19

Developing new disease treatments can take years. That's why Northeastern researchers looked at existing drugs to treat COVID-19. And now they have four strong contenders.

by Eva Botkin-Kowacki April 28, 2021

Chairs are stacked on tables in the closed outdoor dining area of a restaurant in Rowland Heights, California on Dec. 7, 2020. The vast region of Southern California went into a lockdown Monday in an effort to curb spiraling coronavirus infections and hospitalizations. AP Photo by Jae C. Hong

Will more states follow California’s lead in adopting new COVID-19 lockdown measures?

Samuel Scarpino, an assistant professor in Northeastern’s Network Science Institute, says far-reaching lockdowns, such as the regional stay-at-home orders that went into effect in California, will be necessary to bring the surging pandemic under control in the coming months. “Inaction to the surge will lead to tragic consequences,” the researcher warns.

by Khalida Sarwari December 9, 2020

Alessandro Vespignani is the Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor of physics, computer science, and health sciences, and director of the Network Science Institute at Northeastern. Photo by Matthew Modoono/Northeastern University

If rich countries monopolize COVID-19 vaccines, it could cause twice as many deaths as distributing them equally

Researchers from Northeastern’s Network Science Institute have partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to predict COVID-19 deaths based on two different ways of distributing vaccines.

by Emily Arntsen September 14, 2020

To predict where and when the worst outbreaks will be, public health authorities look to disease surveillance systems that incorporate hospital records and internet-sourced data.
A recent study shows that these systems are leaving out people living in impoverished neighborhoods, where there is less access to healthcare. AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Disease surveillance leaves out the communities that need it most

As the current COVID-19 crisis has made abundantly clear, public health agencies need reliable, up-to-date information to effectively address evolving health problems at local, state, and federal levels. But, according to a recent study, systems to track disease outbreaks are leaving out people living in impoverished neighborhoods.

by Laura Castañón July 9, 2020

A view of people enjoying the weather while cycling along Hudson River Path on May 16, 2020 in New York City. AP photo by John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx

People in the US started moving around more before stay-at-home measures were lifted

Even before most states began loosening the measures intended to keep people physically distant and slow the spread of the coronavirus, people were starting to travel further and see each other more, according to research from Northeastern’s Network Science Institute.

by Laura Castañón May 26, 2020

‘A network is crucial to describe how infectious disease spreads, and this is what we do’

On Thursday, Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern, joined Alessandro Vespignani, who directs the Network Science Institute, to discuss where we are now in the COVID-19 crisis, where we’re headed, and what policymakers can do to prepare for the next pandemic.

by Laura Castañón May 14, 2020

This map, created by Alessandro Vespignani and his team, predicts the number of infections in different parts of the U.S., assuming

Models can predict how COVID-19 will spread. What goes into them, and how can we use what they tell us?

On Thursday, Joseph E. Aoun, president of Northeastern, will sit down for a conversation with Alessandro Vespignani, the director of Northeastern’s Network Science Institute, who is leading one of the major efforts to model this disease.

by Laura Castañón May 13, 2020