InForMID
Tufts Initiative for the Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Diseases
Tufts Initiative for the Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Diseases

Specific Aims

As a student-led initiative, we have engaged students from all levels (high school through doctoral students) from in and around New England, and connect them to researchers, academics, practitioners, businesspersons, and government officials actively working in the field of nutrition data sciences. Through this event, we aim to showcase both the methodological complexities of rigorous data analysis as well as the real-world challenges and controversies in transdisciplinary nutrition research.

Analytics Without Borders is a forum for students, researchers, academics, business professionals, and government officials to share, discuss, and explore data analytics. Established through a consortium of academic institutions, namely Tufts University, Bentley University, and Bryant University, annual conferences are held on a rotating basis to promote interdisciplinary collaboration and partnerships. Topics in data analytics include applied statistics, data sciences, and data visualizations, and are presented by the sponsoring institution in alignment with their primary field of research.

This year, the Analytics Without Borders 2020 Conference @ Tufts University (TAWB 2020) provides an opportunity for students, faculty, practitioners, and researchers in the New England region to:

(1) Promote Transdisciplinary Research – we challenge participants to apply analytical methods and data sciences techniques from differing research disciplines in their own works to transcend disciplinary boundaries. Such applications of new analytical methods in nutrition and public health disciplines or well-established data science techniques in unexpecting new contexts fosters opportunities for creativity and innovation

(2) Broaden Interdisciplinary Collaborations – participants perceive the complexities and intricacies of data sciences and analytics from a diversity of perspectives. This enables questions in nutrition and public health, same as any discipline, to be described, explained, or predicted in countless ways. We challenge participants to engage with one another to establish partnerships beyond institutional and generational boundaries and perceive the complexities and intricacies of data sciences from these diverse perspectives

(3) Encourage Data Analytics Communications – as practitioners of data sciences and analytics, we encourage participants to pay proper attention to the means and modes of communicating their own research methods and results. This includes describing decision-making processes, justifying assumptions, and offering detailed visualizations of data science research digestible to a broad range of audiences. We hope to support participants in this process by offering a wide array of panel discussions, hands-on interactive workshops, and opportunities for oral or poster presentations at TAWB 2020.

Strong data science and data analytics skills will shape the next generation of nutrition and public health researchers. Please join us for the TAWB 2020 Conference at the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy to help achieve our goal of broadening transdisciplinary research and interdisciplinary collaborations in nutrition, public health, and data sciences. We believe that with the help of faculty, students, researchers, government officials, and businesspersons from data sciences across the New England Region we can help shed light on many of the challenges and opportunities facing nutrition research of the future.