Northeastern Named One of Five CDC Flu Forecasting Centers, With a $473,342 Grant

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention selected Northeastern University as one of five centers in its National Network of Influenza Modeling and Forecasting, The Huntington News reported.

Interim Provost Tom Sheahan announced the selection at an Oct. 21 faculty senate meeting. "This is actually quite a select honor for us because there are only five of these centers across the nation, and it makes us a leading hub for epidemic modeling and forecasting in the country," he said. Northeastern will work alongside institutions including the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Texas at Austin.

The money

Northeastern received a $473,342 grant for the work, according to the federal Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System, as cited by The Huntington News. In 2023, the CDC gave the university $17.5 million to launch an infectious disease prediction center called Epistorm. Sheahan said financial support for epidemic modeling has become more difficult to obtain.

The work

The network brings research centers together to model and forecast influenza activity, helping public health officials anticipate trends, assess risks and decide on prevention and response, according to the CDC. Northeastern's Network Science Institute did mobility modeling and early-warning forecasting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sheahan credited Alessandro Vespignani, director and Sternberg Family Distinguished Professor, whose research focuses on how epidemics spread through complex networks.

What is still unknown

The Huntington News did not name the other two centers or the length of the award.

The developments described above are drawn from contemporaneous reporting by The Huntington News. As of Thursday morning, the university joins UMass Amherst and UT Austin in the national network. Its interim provost said epidemic-modeling money has become harder to get. Boston Uncut will update this account if primary agencies release additional records, schedules or statements that change the public facts. Readers seeking the underlying documents should consult the linked sources, which carry the full quotations and agency attributions used here. Where allegations appear, they are labeled as allegations; where vote totals or rankings are cited, they reflect the figures published by the named outlet or agency at the time of reporting.

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