14 | LEHIGH ALUMNI BULLETIN In 2025, Thomas McAndrew, associate professor in the department of biostatistics and health data science in the College of Health, received an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to research and develop a novel approach to infectious disease forecasting. He is creating an innovative tool that looks at how accurately individuals make flu predictions over time and weighing those predictions accordingly in his forecasting. Now, a seed grant from Lehigh’s Research Translation AcceLUrator (RTA), a program that helps Lehigh researchers move their innovations beyond the lab, will allow McAndrew to extend that work into a real-world application. Through McAndrew’s RTA-supported Seed Translational Research Project (STRP) “Augmenting Societal Impact with a Translation-Optimized Public Health Forecasting Platform,” he builds on his NSF-funded research and will develop a plan to commercialize DECISIONCAST, a real-time forecasting platform that helps public health officials make faster, data-driven decisions during disease outbreaks. This project builds on advances in epidemiological modeling to create a forecasting system that is optimized for translation into real-world public health practice. By combining real-time data, predictive analytics and stakeholder engagement, the platform aims to improve preparedness, reduce the burden of diseases like influenza and support coordinated responses to emerging outbreaks. A multidisciplinary team of faculty and students are supporting this project. Rochelle Frounfelker, assistant professor in the department of population health, is a co-PI. The need for more advanced, reliable technology to improve infectious disease forecasting is urgent and substantial. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during an average influenza season in the U.S., influenza can cause hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths. Reducing influenza levels will decrease healthcare spending and greatly impact public health. During major outbreaks or pandemics, the CDC organizes an Emergency Operations Center (EOC), which coordinates global outbreak information, develops a single guided response to the outbreak and uses technology to monitor and forecast outbreak threats. The idea for DECISIONCAST is to “share opinions and data decisions at the state and local level and have your own mini emergency EOC,” McAndrew says. McAndrew’s work in infectious disease modeling and forecasting demonstrates how academic innovation can translate into immediate and meaningful impact on human health.—Katie Jones Advancing Infectious Disease Prediction
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