The Abuelezam Lab at Boston College seeks to advance mathematical modeling methods to account for structural determinants of infectious disease transmission, including racism. Our clinic project examines interventions targeting environmental and social determinants of COVID-19 dynamics. We add functionality to an existing transmission model, called Covasim, to provide policy recommendations aimed at reducing racial and socioeconomic disparities in COVID-19 health outcomes.

If green hydrogen, hydrogen produced via electrolysis of water using renewable energy, were to be widely available and cheap to produce, it could be key to decarbonizing industrial production and other end uses. Countries around the world are making investments to become green hydrogen producers and exporters. We aim to develop a production model that incorporates relevant energy, electrolysis and hydrogen resource and technology costs to allow us to estimate the levelized cost of hydrogen and the feasibility of hydrogen trade between geographically separated nations.

Aprovecho Research Center is a nonprofit organization working toward clean biomass cooking and heating solutions around the world. Their Jet-Flame stove accessory for wood-burning cook stoves improves fuel efficiency and reduces harmful emissions by injecting jets of air from under the fire to enhance combustion. The HMC Aprovecho Clinic team has been tasked with improving the durability, modularity, ease of maintenance and cost efficiency of the current Jet-Flame design through a series of prototypes, testing and performance analysis.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second largest public school district in the country, offering an incredible variety of programs. However, for parents and guardians, the process of learning more about potential school choices for their child(ren) can feel overwhelming. The aim of this project is to make the process easier by creating a guided school matchmaking tool to assist LAUSD website users in planning a successful educational pathway for every student.

In this project we aim to use mathematical and computational modeling to identify factors influencing the distribution of arrests in the Los Angeles region. To accomplish this goal, we are creating agent based simulations of police activity and arrest patterns. We plan to vary the probability of arrest and the police-agent path parameters in order to generate different arrest distributions. We will compare our model outputs to recent LAPD arrest data with the aim of identifying factors that contribute to LA’s arrest distributions. These factors will include demographic data along with police-agent patrol patterns. We anticipate this comparison will lead to a better understanding of LAPD arrests and correlating factors that we can use in related future work.

California loses an estimated $8-12 billion in property tax revenue every year due to Proposition 13, a 1978 law that limits annual property tax increases for unsold property. Our team has built an interactive map that uses machine learning predictions and individual case studies to visualize property tax disparities across commercial properties in Los Angeles County. Our sponsor, TechEquity, hopes to use this map as a resource for the general public to increase awareness of the impacts of Proposition 13.

Mee Panyar is a start-up social enterprise in Myanmar that is pioneering community-based management models for operating and maintaining rural solar mini-grids. Modern mini-grid installations include a suite of sensors that may be monitored in real-time. However, rural technicians rarely oversee such monitoring, increasing the chance of system failure. The HMC Clinic Team has designed a suite of statistical and machine learning models that will be used to identify anomalous behavior and flag components for maintenance operations.

We are collaborating with the Community Environmental Health Action Team (CEHAT) of South Gate, CA to create an air quality website and analyze air quality data. The website will be accessible to non-technical audiences in both English and Spanish. Our work will be used to inform the CEHAT, regulators, and South Gate residents about local air quality.

Shoes That Fit tackles one of the most visible signs of poverty by giving children in need new athletic shoes to attend school. The team designed a user-friendly measurement metric, foot measurement device, and data collection system for STF to help manage their company workflow. While maintaining flexibility, the solution implements automation, appraisals, and accuracy to help STF improve and grow. By utilizing the unique measurement and prediction techniques, the team aims to remove excess costs to the process.

Career Technical Education (CTE) programs in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) are career-centered, sequenced courses in fields like engineering, arts, media, and medicine. There are two inefficiencies in LAUSD’s current funding allocation process for CTE programs: (1) it can distribute funding inequitably, and (2) its application review process is overly time-consuming. We aim to address these problems by revising the current funding application and introducing a data-driven process for determining how funding is allocated.