In this talk, Frigessi will sketch the stochastic spatial model which Norwegian Institute of Public Health (FHI/NIPH) has developed and runs for situational awareness and forecasting, with focus on the value of small and big data and uncertainty quantification. Frigessi will tell about how BigInsight - a center for research-based innovation headed by him, was ready to contribute to preparedness and management of the crises.

Arnoldo Frigessi is professor of statistics at the University of Oslo, leads the Oslo Center for Biostatistics and Epidemiology and is director of BigInsight. BigInsight is a centre of excellence for research-based innovation, a consortium of industry, business, public actors and academia, developing model based machine learning methodologies for big data. He is also group leader in the Centre for Digital Life Norway. Originally from Italy, where he had positions in Rome and Venice, he moved to Norway in 1997 as a researcher at the Norwegian Computing Centre, before he became professor at the University of Oslo.

Frigessi has developed statistical methodology motivated by specific problems in science, technology and industry. He has designed stochastic models to study principles, dynamics and patterns of complex dependence. Inference is usually based on computationally intensive stochastic algorithms. Currently, he has research collaborations in genomics, personalised therapy in cancer, infectious disease models, eHealth research, personalised and viral marketing, sensor data and recommender systems. He has published more than 120 papers in peered reviewed journals and has supervised 41 PhD students and 14 postodocs.