Carmen Huber (master’s in Spatial Analysis ’18) had early insight into the pandemic in her role as a senior data analyst and spatial analytics lead for BlueDot.
The Toronto-based social enterprise develops digital technologies for public health and Huber’s work even before the pandemic involved making improvements to the company’s air travel-based model to anticipate the international spread of infectious disease.
“My colleagues on BlueDot’s surveillance team were among the first in the world to identify the emerging risk from COVID-19 in the Hubei province. Through our Insights product, we were able to immediately notify our clients around the world,” she says. “I’m incredibly proud to be a co-author on the world’s first scientific paper on COVID-19, accurately predicting eight of the first 10 cities to import the novel coronavirus.”
Now her workday is dedicated to giving decision-makers, including major businesses, hospitals and all levels of government, the data and insights they need to make smart decisions as they develop their pandemic response in a changing world. “We help them answer questions about what travel patterns look like, how well stay-at-home orders are working, and where the pandemic is headed. I create data visualizations on the rate of change in cases per country and source additional datasets on topics such as hospitalizations and vaccination to support our clients.”
