Human – AI Teaming Approach to Infectious Disease Modeling

Instructors

Lior Rennert, PhD

Dr. Lior Rennert is Associate Dean for Health Sciences in the College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences, Associate Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Public Health Sciences, and Founding Director of the Clemson Center for Public Health Modeling and Response. He received his PhD degree in Biostatistics from the University of Pennsylvania’s Pearlman School of Medicine, MS degree in Statistics from the University of Chicago, and BS in Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Rennert led Clemson’s Public Health Strategy team to provide data analytics and help guide university policy. His current work focuses on the development of data-driven approaches to guide health-related decision making. His research has led to over 90 high-impact publications in the top scientific, medical, and health journals. He has procured approximately $30 million in funding as principal investigator from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His projects aim to develop a statewide network for real-time outbreak detection, forecasting, and coordinating emergency health response. In these efforts, Dr. Rennert has helped build statewide and national collaborations between state health departments, health systems, community partners, and academic institutions in order to integrate Center research into practice and ultimately improve health outcomes across the state of South Carolina and the nation.

Nathan McNeese, PhD

Dr. Nathan J. McNeese is the Associate Vice President for Technology & Innovation, the McQueen Quattlebaum Endowed Professor of Human-Centered Computing, the Founding Director of the Clemson University Center for Human-AI Interaction, Collaboration, & Teaming, and the Founding Director of the Team Research and Analytics in Computational Environments (TRACE) Research Group at Clemson University. In his AVP role, Dr. McNeese leads university-wide initiatives in artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, research, and innovation. He previously held the CECAS Dean's Professorship at Clemson prior to his current AVP and endowed appointments. He received a PhD in Information Sciences & Technology from The Pennsylvania State University. A pioneer in human-AI collaboration and teaming, Dr. McNeese has been instrumental in advancing human-centered approaches to AI research and system development. He has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator for more than 30 research grants and awards, generating over $40 million in funding. He is a recipient of the prestigious NSF CAREER Award. His research work is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Office of Naval Research, Army Research Office, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Department of Education, and several other industry and state agencies. He currently serves on multiple international/societal programs and technical committees, in addition to multiple editorial boards. He has worked with the United Nations, the North Atlantic Trade Organization (NATO), and multiple other countries and international organizations to provide guidance on human-centered AI. He is a National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) board member on the Board of Human Systems Integration (BOHSI), a previous member of multiple National Academy of Sciences initiatives and consensus studies, and a previous member of the Army Research Lab HRED Technical Advisory Board. He is the recipient of the Clemson University Researcher of the Year, the Clemson University Research, Scholarship and Artistic Achievement Award, the HFES William C. Howell Young Investigator Award, and The Pennsylvania State University College of Information Sciences & Technology Overall Outstanding Alumni Award among additional significant honors. His research has received multiple best paper awards/nominations (9 total) and has been published in top peer-reviewed human-computer interaction and human factors venues over 200 times.