MIDAS is coordinated by the MIDAS Coordination Center (MCC), funded by the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The current MCC is located at the University of Pittsburgh, with additional team members at the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins University, and Cornell University. The MCC provides a wide range of services to MIDAS members, as listed below.
MIDAS members and collaborators meet once per year at the annual MIDAS meeting. The MIDAS meeting is not a closed meeting, but open to anybody interested. There is no registration fee for the MIDAS meeting, to enable many students, postdocs, and members from low-resource settings to participate. The MCC organizes the annual meeting together with an organizing committee.
The MCC supports MIDAS outreach and training by organizing training workshops or by providing scholarships for MIDAS students to participate in training workshops organized by collaborators. The MCC improves the visibility of MIDAS through online promotion of MIDAS activities (website, social media, newsletter), and through informational booths and materials at conferences, such as the Epidemics Conference. If you have ideas for outreach and training activities relevant to MIDAS, email them to [email protected].
Infectious disease modeling depends on computational resources. The MCC provides cloud-based high-performance computing (HPC) services to MIDAS members at no charge, funded by the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The MCC has partnered with NIH Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative and Google Cloud Platform to provide discounted computing services to MIDAS. Centralized cloud-based HPC services enable a cost-effective, pay-as-you-go solution to MIDAS computing needs, where the administrative functions are efficiently centralized. Each MIDAS member using HPC gets a personal account for their computing needs, administered and paid for through the central pool of MCC-based MIDAS resources. Members interested in using HPC services can submit a request here.
MIDAS is characterized by interdisciplinary collaboration which depends on strong communication channels and practices. MIDAS researchers often collaborate with public health practitioners, such as outbreak response agencies, or agencies interested in infectious disease forecasting. Collaboration with public health enables translation of MIDAS research into public health practice and societal impact. The MCC supports communication between MIDAS members by maintaining updated contact information on the MIDAS website, mailing lists, and by organizing various training and networking events for the community. The MCC also maintains regular contact with health agencies and connects agencies to MIDAS members and vice versa as needed. In addition, the MCC is working with interested MIDAS members and collaborators to establish a communication protocol for streamlining existing and new collaborations with government agencies interested in using MIDAS models.