Joana Barros is a researcher in Insight@NUI Galway is using machine learning and social media to track the spread of infectious diseases.
She completed her undergraduate degree in biology at the University of Porto before moving to Lisbon to pursue a master’s in bioinformatics and computational biology. This was when she first experienced the development of machine learning models. Specifically, she worked on the
prediction of drug interactions with a potassium channel crucial for the heart’s normal function. Barros moved to Ireland in 2016 to start her PhD in Insight, looking at public health monitoring through digital health.
A few weeks ago, she spoke to Silicon Republic about her work, using social media to track disease spread. You can read the full interview here.