MIDAS COVID-19 Urgent Grant Program

About

The MIDAS COVID-19 Urgent Grant Program is made possible through NIGMS supplemental funding to the MCC. The goal of the COVID-19 Urgent Grant Program is to rapidly provide funds to researchers in the MIDAS network to accelerate the development of models of COVID-19 spread and the impact of possible public health interventions. Projects can include any type of modeling methods to address an important aspect of COVID-19. New multidisciplinary partnerships and use of innovative modeling methods are encouraged. Two types of awards are funded: Supplemental funding and New Initiative funding.

This grant program would not be possible without the help from our reviewers. We would like to thank them for their participation in this process. The reviewers for each program can be found on the respective grant pages.

New Initiative Funding

New Initiative funding provides MIDAS investigators with up to $100,000 for a new research project. Five projects are funded. New Initiative funding adds new data or outcomes to COVID-19 modeling research, or to addresses gaps in the existing COVID-19 modeling landscape. Enhancements to existing models include, among others, adding economic outcomes, taking into account environmental or social drivers of infection, or incorporating more complex human behavior. New Initiative funding may also be used to develop new modeling resources, such as open data or software. New Initiative projects will take place within the 10-01-2020 to 06-30-2021 period (for more information, see the section about the award process).

Reviewers

Aditya Khanna

Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Brown University

Alex Perkins

Associate Professor
University of Notre Dame

Angel Paternina-Caicedo

Professor
Universidad del Sinu

Anthony O’Hare

Lecturer
University of Stirling

Bogdan Epureanu

Professor
University of Michigan

Casey Cazer

Assistant Professor
Cornell University

Cecile Viboud

Staff Scientist
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Daniel A. M. Villela

Department Head
Fundação Oswaldo Cruz

Donald Burke

Distinguished University Professor of Health Science and Policy
University of Pittsburgh

Dylan George

Vice President
Ginkgo Bioworks

Elizabeth Lee

Research Associate
Johns Hopkins University

Jai Prakash Tripathi

Assistant Professor
Central University of Rajasthan

Jeanine Buchanich

Reseach Associate Professor
University of Pittsburgh

Laura White

Professor
Boston University

Lin Wang

Research Associate
University of Cambridge

Michal Ben-Nun

Research Scientist
Predictive Science Inc.

Morgane Rolland

Chief
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Sen Pei

Assistant Professor
Columbia University

Srinivasan Venkatramanan

Research Scientist
University of Virginia

Tiffany Bogich

Postdoc
Penn State University

Ziteng Wang

Assistant Professor
Northern Illinois University

Transmission and severity of SARS-CoV-2 in India

Principal Investigator:

Joseph Lewnard

University of California, Berkeley

Sero-epidemiological modeling for COVID-19 control

Principal Investigator:

Isabel Rodríguez-Barraquer

University of California, San Francisco

Model-informed vaccine prioritization strategies

Principal Investigator:

Daniel Larremore

University of Colorado Boulder

Design of cost-effective COVID-19 surveillance

Principal Investigator:

Jaline Gerardin

Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Aggregating computational models and human judgment for more accurate forecasts of the US COVID-19 outbreak

Principal Investigator:

Thomas McAndrew

Lehigh University

Supplemental Funding for Ongoing Work

MIDAS members may request up to $10,000 in total (direct and indirect) funds to supplement ongoing COVID-19 research. No pre-existing grant funding needs to be in place for these awards. Approximately 10 Supplemental awards will be made. Supplemental funding could be requested to cover publication costs, equipment, student salaries, or other small-scale cost in support of ongoing COVID-19 modeling research. Supplemental funding projects take place within the 09-11-2020 to 06-30-2021 period (for more information, see the section about the award process).