STUDENTS PREDICT FLU OUTBREAKS FASTER THAN CDC

Hauppauge High School is proud to announce that seniors Luke Farrell and Sarah Jacobs competed in the International Sustainable World’s Energy, Engineering, and Environment Project Olympiad (ISWEEEP) in Houston, Texas, May 8-10, 2015. Their project, titled “Machine Learning’s Application to Epidemiological Surveillance: A More Effective Means to Monitor the Spread of the Influenza Virus,” won First Place in the Environment’s Health and Disease Prevention category of the competition.

Farrell’s and Jacobs’ revolutionary project was conducted “in house” at the High School and successfully demonstrated a method to predict flu outbreaks on both a regional and municipal scale a full two weeks ahead of the CDC using a neural network and Tweets pulled from Twitter. If used, this method could save more than $50 million annually and would allow cities and hospitals to prepare for outbreaks with increased staffing and medical supplies. It also has the potential to be applied to the surveillance of other infectious disease outbreaks.

“Luke and Sarah were excellent representatives of Hauppauge High School in a tremendously competitive atmosphere,” stated Director of Science, Technology and Research Robert Wankmuller. “They exhibited both confidence and character, and I am extremely proud of their achievement.”

Photo by Kathy Bottner.