CAGIS Receive School of Data Science Funding to Develop Digital Twins for Public Health

The Center for Applied GIScience (CAGIS) is pleased to announce that the project “Digital Twins for Public Health: Coupling Human Mobility and Airflow Dynamics for Indoor Viral Transmission” has received $16,000 in funding from the UNC Charlotte School of Data Science.

The project is led by Dr. Yao Li, Dr. Xuyang Li, and Dr. Don Chen. This project aims to develop an advanced Digital Twin framework that predicts the transmission risk of respiratory pathogens within built environments. By integrating Reality Capture (LiDAR and 360° imaging), 3D Agent-Based Modeling (ABM), and AI-driven surrogate modeling for airflow, we seek to bridge the mesoscale gap in current epidemiological modeling. The research will provide facility managers with high-fidelity simulations that account for both complex human social behavior and the underlying physics of airborne viral transport.