About the US COVID Atlas
The US Covid Atlas works to understand, archive, and represent the often unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
Explore at https://theuscovidatlas.org/.
The US COVID Atlas is an open-source, near real-time data visualization tool, led by the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. Our mission is to understand, archive, and represent the often unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The Atlas also provides analytics and spatial statistics for community health data, builds open-source, community-engaged data tools, and generates public health insights toward furthering spatial and racial equity.
Team
The US COVID Atlas is a coalition of research partners and contributors that have been integral to developing and expanding the Atlas to meet the needs of health practitioners, planners, researchers, and the public. The Atlas core team leads from the Center for Spatial Data Science at University of Chicago have directed development of the Atlas since its first launch in March of 2020.
The core team at the University of Chicago now includes:
Marynia Kolak, MS, MFA, PhD
Assistant Director for Health Informatics
Senior Lecturer in Geographic Information Science
Healthy Regions & Policies Lab (PI)
Aresha Martinez-Cardoso, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Public Health Sciences
Xun Li, PhD
Assistant Director for Data Science
Center for Spatial Data Science
Qinyun Lin, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Healthy Regions & Policies Lab
Dylan Halpern, MCP
Senior Software Engineer
Healthy Regions & Policies Lab
Susan Paykin, MPP
Research Manager
Healthy Regions & Policies Lab
Read more about the Atlas core team and network of partners and volunteers here.
Community Advisory Board
The US COVID Atlas is establishing a Community Advisory Board (CAB) to help guide data and equity considerations around insight generation, community engagement, and research communications.
Specifically, the CAB will advise and provide feedback on:
- Data ethics and collection;
- Research efforts investigating community-level COVID impacts;
- Identifying community organizations with overlapping missions and/or partnerships; and
- Communicating research briefs, events, and workshops geared toward community audiences.
We are excited to share more about the CAB and its members for its launch in September 2021. Please contact Aresha Martinez-Cardoso, PhD with any questions.
Project Timeline
A network of volunteers have made the Atlas possible through their contributions to its open-source code, research collaboration across institutions. The timeline below highlights team contributions over the development of the Atlas. View the timeline on our site (coming soon) for the complete list of volunteers and contributors.
Alpha | March to April 2020
Marynia Kolak, Xun Li, and Qinyun Lin begin development of the Atlas on March 14, and make it public on March 21. Feedback on initial prototype and approach are provided by colleagues at the Center for Spatial Data Science, UW Madison Data Science Group, and more.
Beta | May to October 2020
The Atlas is awarded funding by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to assist vulnerable communities. County Health Rankings, CSI Solutions, Dr. Yu’s research group at Berkeley joined as coalition partners to connect platforms/insights. Graphic design, UI/UX, and help guides developed with support by Studio Akemi, Burness Communications, and the UChicago Libraries. A new Insights blog is launched in Medium to synthesize Atlas findings and share COVID experiences from multiple views.
v2 | November to May 2021
Dylan Halpern and Susan Paykin join the Atlas team. The Atlas infrastructure is optimized and upgraded to more dynamic, interactive design. Communication of insights to various stakeholders is refined. Analysis of COVID disparities across multiple dimensions begins.
v3 | June 2021 Onward
Aresha Martinez-Cardoso joins the core Atlas team. A second phase of funding is awarded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to explore equity and resilient communities. The Community Advisory Board is launched.
Funding
The Altas gratefully acknowledges funding and support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Privacy Policy
As an open source, not-for-profit initiative, we do not sell user data, actions, or insights. Check back soon for details on our privacy policy.
