risk scoring for exposure notification app

Covid Watch is an organization with a clear mission – developing open source code to empower people with technology to stop the pandemic while protecting digital privacy. We build and foster decentralized technology using anonymous exposure notifications that help slow the spread of COVID-19 without sharing any personal information.

Since our founding in February 2020, Covid Watch has grown to a team of more than 500 volunteers from around the world, including experts in privacy and public health, technologists, developers, writers, and designers. Covid Watch is actively working with universities and public health departments to integrate the Covid Watch platform with public health systems.

We are looking for a research associate to further develop the cutting edge risk scoring (described in part at https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.17.20156539) that already makes Covid Watch stand out from other exposure notification apps. Research publication is encouraged, in some cases following patenting.

Skills for an ideal candidate

• Strong background in probability, including rigorous graduate coursework and a feeling for complicated conditionalities

• Some knowledge of infectious disease, whether from the perspective of epidemiology, of within host dynamics, or of exposure science such as dose-response curves or aerosol dynamics

• Desire for rigor where possible, tempered with ability to make bold assumptions where gaps in knowledge exist

• Clearly communicate with code developers, keeping in mind the user experience of what and how information is collected

• Clearly communicate with public health representatives, tailoring explanations to audience background and needs

• Monitor the relevant literature and network with other scientists working on similar questions

• Targeting quarantine efficiently, ie. only to those at highest risk of infecting others, is a principle that drives you

• Protecting privacy is a principle that drives you

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills

• Knowledge of Apple / Google Exposure Notification API is a plus

Ideal outcomes within 2 weeks

• Understand the existing risk scoring system

• Establish effective lines of communication with prior developers of risk scoring and with code developers

• Estimate test sensitivity as a function of timing, on the basis of previously identified datasets

Ideal outcomes within 1 month

• Design a scheme to update risk in the light of negative test results, which accounts for the conditionality of all relevant probabilities

• Update at least one existing component of risk scoring in the light of quantitative data from new literature

• Propose one novel improvement to risk scoring approach

You can see more about the app here https://www.covidwatch.org/smartphone-app