COVID Webinar #2: All Hands on Deck! Citizen Science and Serious Games Tackle Covid-19

The Citizen Science Association Law and Policy Working Group invite you to take part to ‘COVID Webinar #2: All Hands on Deck! Citizen Science and Serious Games Tackle Covid-19’

FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2020

TIME: 8-9:15 AM PT / 11 AM – 12:15 PM ET / 4-5:15 PM CET

REGISTER HERE:  https://bit.ly/CSAcovidGames

Speakers: 

• EteRNA

Rhiju Das, Associate Professor, Stanford University

• Protein-folding citizen scientists tackle Covid-19 with Foldit

Firas Khatib, Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth

•  Covid Near You

Kara Seawalk, Boston Children’s Hospital and Covid Near You

• COVID.SI: Citizen science project to fight against NCOV-SARS-2 by distributed computing  

Črtomir Podlipnik

• Safecast and Responding to Covid-19 through crowdsourced data

Angela Eaton, Safecast Americas Director

Follow the conversation on Twitter: @CitSciAssoc and using hashtags #CitSciPolicy and #CitSci

Find below the Presenters’ Bios:

Rhiju Das, Ph.D., is a computational biochemist at Stanford University School of Medicine. His lab seeks a predictive understanding of how RNA molecules code for complex biological machines. The lab’s computer algorithms have consistently achieved leading predictions in world-wide structure prediction trials. Complementary to these computer methods, Dr. Das is developing high-throughput ‘multidimensional chemical mapping’ experiments to uncover three-dimensional structures and conformational changes of non-coding RNAs in their biological milieu, leading to discoveries relevant to human development, neurological disorders, and viral infection. Towards novel molecules of biomedical interest, Dr. Das leads the Eterna massive open laboratory. Eterna couples a 250,000-player videogame to the lab’s massively parallel experimental tools and deep learning, the first such platform in citizen science. Dr. Das’s research has been recognized with the Burroughs-Wellcome Career Award at the Interface of Science, a W.M. Keck Medical Research Program award, the OpenEye/American Chemical Society Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, and an endowed faculty award. Dr. Das mentors students from Stanford’s biochemistry, biophysics, biomedical informatics, chemistry, and learning sciences Ph.D. programs. EteRNA: https://eternagame.org/web/news/9804036/

Firas Khatib, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 2001, and his Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from UC Santa Cruz in 2008. Prior to joining UMass Dartmouth, he was a Senior Fellow in the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute at the University of Washington. Firas has been the lead scientist of Foldit, a video game that has allowed hundreds of thousands of players to contribute to biochemical scientific research. The long-term goal of this project is to utilize the combined power of humans and computers in order to build accurate models of disease-related proteins.

Kara Seawalk is an epidemiologist for Health Map at Boston Children’s Hospital. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/crowdsourcing-covid-19

Dr Črtomir Podlipnik is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He has a great scientific interest in the research of relevant biomolecular systems, and with his valuable, comprehensive knowledge in this field, he actively participates in many projects, including researches of Ebola and COVID-19. Together with colleagues and with support of Central Technical Library at the University of Ljubljana he organized Citizen science project – COVID.SI.

Angela Eaton leads Safecast’s air quality and radiation monitoring efforts and supports participatory environmental monitoring throughout the Americas. Currently, she’s working on COVID-19 response through the creation of a crowdsourced testing map and a virus progression diary. Angela also works with CSA member, Vivienne Byrd, at LAPL to add to its efforts in building citizen science communities at branches. She served as a Civil Society Working Group reviewer during the UN Habitat III process, in which the current sustainable development goals were established, and has consulted in sustainable systems design in urban water infrastructure, conservation and greenhouse gas reductions for non-profits, utilities, and cities. Despite Shelter in Place, Angela seeks new ways to encourage environmental monitoring as a means to satisfy the curious and empower communities.

Lea Shanley, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow in the Nelson Institute at the University of Wisconsin Madison and Advisor to SciStarter. Her research interests focus on the intersection of open science, technology, policy and law. Previously, Lea served as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at NASA, co-founder of the Federal Citizen Science community of practice and citizenscinece.gov, and founding director of the Commons Lab at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.  She was a CSA Board Member, and now serves on the CSA Law and Policy Working Group Steering Committee. T: @Lea_Shanley

Reanna Putnam is the Community Engagement Specialist for the Citizen Science Association. She coordinates CSA’s communications to enhance member engagement, supports Working Groups, and facilitates CSA’s ongoing webinar series.  Reanna has a masters in Sociology from Colorado State University and over five years of experience working for non-profits.