Name: Niema Moshiri
Hometown: Chula Vista, California
Hobbies: Video games, TV shows, movies, and hacking
What do you study? I study the evolution of viruses and try to create mathematical models in order to capture this evolution as accurately as possible. I also work with epidemiologists to apply the theoretical properties I find to real communities in the San Diego area.
Why is it important? Life is economics, which means that we try to satisfy unlimited wants using limited resources. Epidemiologists have limited resources at their disposal to fight the spread of infectious diseases, so with the help of computational scientists like me, they can apply their limited resources as optimally as possible in order to best fight the viruses.
What do you like about being a scientist?I’ve always enjoyed solving puzzles, and science (especially biology) is in my opinion the ultimate puzzle: every time you answer one question, a hundred more questions appear!
Teaser: I gave a talk at TEDxUCSD 2017 about the future of online education, and the video can be found here: