Organizing Committee
- Mark Lurie
Brown University - Anna Lysyanskaya
Brown University - Julia Netter
Brown University - Sohini Ramachandran
Brown University - Betsy Stubblefield Loucks
Brown University - Kimani Toussaint
Brown University - Thomas Trikalinos
Brown University
Abstract
The collection and analysis of large-scale population level and individual mobility and social mixing data raises fundamental ethical questions related to privacy, individual autonomy, consent, and the distribution of power in society. Balancing those concerns with the desires of public health researchers and policy makers to learn what they need from the data is a central challenge. Ethics is a fundamentally discursive discipline and useful guidance on any of the challenges mentioned above can only result from actively engaging with a variety of perspectives and openly discussing their implications for the design and implementation of the big data-driven methods and technologies used in public health research. At the same time, ethicists must gain substantive insight into the technical details of these means if they are to identify and discuss specific concerns, and provide targeted recommendations.
In this multidisciplinary workshop, we will brainstorm new ethical challenges surrounding the collection of health-related data and also explore some concrete methods that can, for example, minimize privacy loss and mitigate avenues for social control in this area (e.g., multi-party computation, differential privacy).

Confirmed Speakers & Participants
Talks will be presented virtually or in-person as indicated in the schedule below.
- Speaker
- Poster Presenter
- Attendee
- Virtual Attendee
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Mohammed Akel
Brown University
-
Stephen Bach
Brown University Computer Science Department
-
Rachel Baker
Brown University
-
Nancy Barnett
Brown University
-
Alyssa Bilinski
Brown University
-
Gerardo Chowell
Georgia State University
-
John Fulton
Brown University School of Public Health
-
Jason Gantenberg
Brown University
-
Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert
Stanford University
-
Marissa Gray
Brown University
-
Deborah Hurley
Brown University
-
Wilmot James
Columbia University
-
Aditya Khanna
Brown University
-
Vlad Kolesnikov
Georgia Institute of Technology
-
Katrina Ligett
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
-
Peyton Luiz
Brown University
-
Mark Lurie
Brown University
-
Anna Lysyanskaya
Brown University
-
Momin Malik
Mayo Clinic
-
F. Patricia Medina
CUNY New York City College of Technology
-
Peihan Miao
Brown University
-
George Mohler
Boston College
-
Debanuj Nayak
Boston University
-
Julia Netter
Brown University
-
Marcel Neunhoeffer
Boston University
-
Jennifer Nuzzo
Brown University
-
Jonathan Ozik
University of Chicago/Argonne National Laboratory
-
Jonah Popp
Brown University
-
Tianjie Qiu
Brown University
-
Megan Ranney
Brown University
-
Sofya Raskhodnikova
Boston University
-
Samuel Rosenblatt
University of Vermont
-
Bjorn Sandstede
Brown University
-
Samuel Scarpino
Northeastern University
-
Adam Smith
Boston University
-
Craig Spencer
Brown University School of Public Health
-
Betsy Stubblefield Loucks
Brown University
-
Kimani Toussaint
Brown University
-
Thomas Trikalinos
Brown University
-
Connor Wagaman
Boston University
-
claire wardle
Brown University
-
Guixing Wei
Brown University
Workshop Schedule
Tuesday, January 17, 2023
-
8:45 - 9:00 am ESTCheck In11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
9:00 - 9:15 am ESTWelcome11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Brendan Hassett, ICERM/Brown University
-
9:15 - 10:00 am ESTOpening plenary: Introduction to MAPPS; Participant introductionsOpening Remarks - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Mark Lurie, Brown University
-
10:00 - 10:30 am ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
10:30 - 11:15 am ESTKeynote: Modeling epidemics with network data11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Samuel Scarpino, Northeastern University
- Session Chair
- Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, Stanford University
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has upended our societies and re-shaped the way we go about our day-to-day lives—from how we work and interact to the way we buy groceries and attend school. In this talk, I will present a series of studies exploring how our behavior, mobility patterns, and social networks have altered and been altered by COVID-19. Leveraging global data sets that represent billions of people, I will show how myriad factors interacted to shape the course of the pandemic. Using the lessons learned from COVID-19, I will discuss how we might balance the ethical and privacy considerations around high-resolution mobility data with their critical role in responding to epidemics.
-
11:15 am - 12:00 pm ESTKeynote: Privacy and epidemic modeling11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Katrina Ligett, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Session Chair
- Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert, Stanford University
-
12:00 - 1:30 pm ESTLunch/Free Time
-
1:30 - 2:30 pm ESTSession: Envisioning the data needs of MAPPING@Brown11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speakers
- Jason Gantenberg, Brown University
- Kimani Toussaint, Brown University
- Thomas Trikalinos, Brown University
- Guixing Wei, Brown University
- Session Chair
- Mark Lurie, Brown University
-
2:30 - 3:00 pm ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
3:00 - 4:30 pm ESTBreakout 1: Data needs for MAPPING@Brown - led by Mark LurieGroup Work
-
4:30 - 5:00 pm ESTReport-outs and InstructionsGroup Presentations - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Mark Lurie, Brown University
-
5:00 - 6:30 pm ESTReception11th Floor Collaborative Space
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
-
8:45 - 9:00 am ESTCheck In11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
9:00 - 9:15 am ESTWelcome11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Megan Ranney, Brown University
-
9:15 - 10:00 am ESTKeynote: Synthetic data for network modeling11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Adam Smith, Boston University
- Session Chair
- Anna Lysyanskaya, Brown University
-
10:00 - 10:30 am ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
10:30 - 11:15 am ESTKeynote: Key concerns and principles for large-scale data collections and surveillance11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Julia Netter, Brown University
- Session Chair
- Wilmot James, Columbia University
-
11:15 am - 12:00 pm ESTKeynote: Differential privacy in graphs11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Sofya Raskhodnikova, Boston University
- Session Chair
- Wilmot James, Columbia University
-
12:00 - 1:00 pm ESTLunch/Free Time
-
1:00 - 1:30 pm ESTPrep for BreakoutsGroup Work - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
-
1:30 - 2:30 pm ESTBreakout 2: Privacy and data collection in the context of MAPPING@Brown - led by Julia NetterGroup Work
-
2:30 - 3:00 pm ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
3:00 - 4:30 pm ESTBreakout 3: Applications of differential privacy for MAPPING@Brown - led by Anna LysyanskayaGroup Work - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
-
4:30 - 5:00 pm ESTReport-outs and InstructionsGroup Presentations - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Julia Netter, Brown University
Thursday, January 19, 2023
-
8:45 - 9:00 am ESTCheck In11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
9:00 - 9:15 am ESTIntroductory Remarks and Breakout PrepOpening Remarks - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Thomas Trikalinos, Brown University
-
9:15 - 10:00 am ESTKeynote: A Forecasting epidemiological patterns using multi-scale semi-mechanistic models11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Gerardo Chowell, Georgia State University
- Session Chair
- George Mohler, Boston College
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgent need to develop reliable tools to forecast the trajectory of epidemics and pandemics in near real time. We describe and apply an ensemble n-sub-epidemic modeling framework for predicting the course of epidemics and pandemics. We systematically assess its calibration and short-term forecasting performance and compare it with other competitive statistical models. This sub-epidemic framework has demonstrated reliable forecasting performance in the context of COVID-19 and monkeypox epidemics.
-
10:00 - 10:30 am ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
10:30 am - 12:00 pm ESTBreakout 4: Design and Anaylsis of a MAPPING@Brown embedded simulation - led by Thomas Trikalinos and Jason GantenbergGroup Work
-
12:00 - 1:00 pm ESTLunch/Free Time
-
1:00 - 1:15 pm ESTPrep for BreakoutGroup Work - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
-
1:15 - 2:00 pm ESTState of the sciene: Multiparty computation11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Peihan Miao, Brown University
- Session Chair
- Anna Lysyanskaya, Brown University
Abstract
Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) enables multiple entities to perform joint computations on their private data without exposing the data to one another. Since its introduction in the 1980s, MPC has been one of the most active research areas in cryptography, due in part to its wide applications and promising security guarantees. Over the last decade, MPC has gradually progressed from being purely of theoretical interest to being adopted more and more in practice. Yet, the adoption of MPC in real-world settings is still very limited as of today. In light of the recent data privacy legislations, there is an urgent need for bridging the gap between the theoretical feasibility and practical efficiency of MPC. Research in this area spans both theoretical and applied cryptography. In theory, we develop new techniques for achieving general MPC with the optimal complexity, bringing theory closer to practice. In practice, we design tailored MPC to achieve the best concrete efficiency for specific real-world applications. In this talk, I will discuss the challenges in both directions and how to overcome these challenges using cryptographic approaches.
-
2:00 - 2:45 pm ESTKeynote: Efficient and scalable muliparty computation11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Speaker
- Vlad Kolesnikov, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Session Chair
- Anna Lysyanskaya, Brown University
-
2:45 - 3:15 pm ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
3:15 - 4:45 pm ESTBreakout 5: Multi-party computation for analyzing MAPPING@Brown mobility data - led by Anna LysyankayaGroup Work
-
4:45 - 5:00 pm ESTReport-outs and InstructionsGroup Presentations - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Anna Lysyanskaya, Brown University
-
6:30 - 7:30 pm ESTDinner at Waterman GrilleExternal Event
Friday, January 20, 2023
-
9:00 - 9:30 am ESTCheck In11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
9:30 - 10:45 am ESTHighlights and Discussion - Flipped PannelClosing Remarks - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
- Session Chair
- Jason Gantenberg, Brown University
-
10:45 - 11:00 am ESTCoffee Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
-
11:00 am - 12:00 pm ESTSynthesis Session: Envisioning the next 5 yearsProblem Session - 11th Floor Lecture Hall
-
12:00 - 1:30 pm ESTLunch & DepartureLunch/Free Time
All event times are listed in ICERM local time in Providence, RI (Eastern Standard Time / UTC-5).
All event times are listed in .
ICERM local time in Providence, RI is Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5). Would you like to switch back to ICERM time or choose a different custom timezone?
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