Amir Mokhtari Innovates in Response to COVID-19

Dr. Amir Mokhtari believes that more of the world’s decision makers should be empowered to inform their decisions with clear, relevant, and timely data.

He’s putting that belief to work with Booz Allen’s COVID-19 Safe Return Simulator, a tool that leverages time-tested public health modeling techniques and cutting-edge forecasting methods to crunch the latest data and provide actionable predictions on when it will be safe to ease pandemic-related restrictions at a county-by-county level.

“The simulator is a virtual laboratory that public health officials and other decision makers can use to test a wide range of assumptions and forecast how different 'what-if' scenarios might affect disease dynamics within local populations,” says Amir. “With these results in hand, they can design more precise risk-mitigation strategies and plan for a safe resumption of activities.”

With over a decade of methodologically diverse risk modeling experience, Amir brings an impressive amount of problem-solving firepower to his role as technical lead on the project. But nothing fills him with more pride than leading at the human level. “I'm a true believer that the road to success goes through building a dedicated group of people around yourself and continuously empowering and recognizing them,” he says.

We recently spoke with Amir to learn more about his work and what drives him.  

Many publicly available predictive tools for COVID-19 employ macro-level modeling techniques that simplify the disease’s dynamics by assuming a homogeneous population. I thought that by using a hybrid approach, we could overcome this limitation and use a variety of important factors—like underlying population heterogeneity, population movement, and observed cases of illness—to yield high-fidelity projections at the state and local levels. 

I started building prototype models and shared the idea with senior leaders, including John Larson and Dr. Kevin Vigilante, our chief medical officer. The concept gained traction when my colleagues with backgrounds in infectious disease modeling and epidemiology saw the idea’s potential value as a novel disease surveillance methodology. I assembled a team to enhance my initial prototypes—Booz Allen’s deep pool of talented, hard-working professionals made this possible. The Safe Return Simulator is the result.

Federal, state, and local decision makers now have a virtual laboratory to evaluate different scenarios, identify hot spots of infection, examine reasons for disproportionate distribution of mortality and morbidity across the U.S., and evaluate how impacts of COVID-19 can be mitigated within communities. 

Read Amir's publication on his team's approach to modeling the COVID-19 disease dynamics in Nature's Scientific Report here.

The greatest reward is knowing that our solutions can provide easy-to-understand, actionable, and real-time metrics relevant to the pandemic. The better we manage our response to COVID-19, the fewer lives we’ll lose and the less economic suffering we’ll see.

My career in mathematical modeling and data science began during my post-doc at North Carolina State when I collaborated with a microbiology lab to develop risk assessment models for pathogen contamination in the food supply. From that experience, I gained an appreciation for the importance of using advanced methods in sensitivity analysis and uncertainty characterization to better understand the insights that models can provide for decision makers.

I chose Booz Allen because I wanted to work for an organization that is committed to solving big problems, that values innovation and creativity, and that has the vision to create a better future. I knew I had made the right choice when my colleagues and I began developing the Safe Return Simulator. It’s a technically sophisticated solution that exemplifies our creativity and desire to make a difference. 

The energy at Booz Allen and the focus on technical excellence really drive me to be the best version of myself, personally and professionally. This energy emanates from all levels of the company, creating an environment where each of us is empowered to learn, grow, and take on new challenges.