Crisis Computing Team
The aims of the Crisis Computing team at QCRI are to conduct applied and core computer science research and to build innovative technologies that can be used by decision-makers, NGOs, affected communities, and scholars to improve the effectiveness of humanitarian strategies such as preparedness, mitigation, and response during humanitarian crises and emergencies.
We apply natural language processing, machine learning, and computer vision techniques to crisis information communicated via social media to gain situational awareness and actionable information for the humanitarian response. This research and development effort is currently focused on consuming social media content available in different forms (e.g., text, image, video, etc.) on Twitter and Facebook, and is coordinated in collaboration with several regional and global partners including UN OCHA, UNICEF, Suffolk County Fire Rescue and Emergency Management Department in New York, and Education Above All.
Current Team Members:
- Muhammad Imran – Project lead
- Ferda Ofli – Computer Vision Science lead
- Rizwan Sadiq – Postdoc
- Umair Qazi – Research Assistant
- Zainab Akhtar – Research Assistant
- Aya El-Sakka – Research Assistant
Alumni:
- Carlos Castillo – Project Co-lead
- Patrick Meier – Project Co-lead
- Prasenjit Mitra – Principal Scientist
- Heather Leson – Program Manager
- Firoj Alam – Scientist
- Ji Lucas – Senior Software Engineer
- Koushik Sinha – Senior Software Engineer
- Meghna Singh – Software Engineer
- Ehsan Ullah – Software Engineer
- Michael Aupetit – Scientist (HCI – part-time)
- Noora Mohamed Al Emadi – Software Engineer
- Dat Nguyen – Research Assistant
- Jakob Rogstadius – Research Associate
Crisis Computing 