TNL R3 – Modeling Movement in a Pandemic

TNL RAND Researcher Residency – Tim Gulden

This project is exploring the use of “volunteered” mobile device data to better understand the network of human contact over which Covid-19 (and much of human culture) spreads within an American city.  Specifically, we are looking at a set of 2.2 billion “pings” in the Portland, Ore. Metropolitan region between January and April 2020. These data were obtained from UberMedia – a company that aggregates, analyzes, and resells position information from over 150,000 smart phone apps where the user has agreed to share their position with the app developer and its partners.

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