About the US COVID Atlas

The US Covid Atlas project works to understand, archive, and represent
the often unequal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

Atlas Core Team

The US COVID Atlas Project is a coalition of research partners and contributors that have been integral to developing and expanding the Covid Atlas to meet the needs of health practitioners, planners, researchers, and the public. The Atlas team leads from The Center for Spatial Data Science have directed development of the Atlas since its first launch in March of 2020.

Marynia Kolak, MS, MFA, PhD

Health Geographer, GIScientist, Principal Investigator

Aresha Martinez-Cardoso, PhD

Assistant Professor, Co-Principal Investigator

Qinyun Lin, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow specializing in causal inference, social network analysis & multi-level models, Co-Principal Investigator

Mandela Gadri, MS, PhD Student

Research Assistant

Sarvagnya Vijay

Software Developer, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Emily Glenn

Marketing Assistant, Undergraduate Research Assistant

Past Core Contributors

Xun Li, PhD

Assistant Director for Data Science & principal software engineer of GeoDa

Dylan Halpern, MCP

Senior Software Engineer

Susan Paykin, MPP

Research Manager

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.

March to April 2020

May to October 2020

November to May 2021

June 2021 to December 2022

January 2023 to August 2024

Kolak, Li, and 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.

Akemi Hong
Principal (Studio Akemi)

Alexander Hohl
Assistant Professor, Geography (University of Utah)

Andrés Crucetta
Research Assistant (CSDS)

Ari Israel
UX Engineer

Bibind Vasu
Research Assistant (CSDS)

Bin Yu, PhD
Chancellor's Distinguished Professor, Principal of Yu Research Group, Departments of Statistics and EECS (Berkeley)

Brian Yandell, PhD
Interim Director at the American Family Insurance Data Science Institute, lead of the UW-Madison COVID Data Science Team (UW-Madison)

Cecilia Smith, MS, PhD
GIS and Maps Librarian, Univesity of Chicago (UChicago Library)

Dan Snow, MS
Software Engineer (CSDS)

Erin Abbott
Research Assistant (CSDS)

Fletcher Berryman
Writer

German Cadenas
(Lehigh University)

Greg Wolverton
CTO (CSI Solutions)

Gustavo Pellegrini Dias
SISRM Fellow (CSDS)

Jay Bhatt

Jinfei Zhu
Data Engineering Fellow (CSDS)

John Steill
Computational Biologist Morgridge Institute of Research (UW-Madison)

Julia Koschinsky
Executive Director of the Center for Spatial Data Science at the University of Chicago. (CSDS)

Karina Acosta Ordonez
PhD Student, Visiting Scholar (CSDS)

Kathy Reims, MD
CMO (CSI Solutions)

Kenna Camper
Research Assistant Communications Specialist (CSDS)

Kevin Credit
Fellow (CSDS)

Kevin Little, PhD
Principal (Informing Ecological Design, LLC)

Laura Chen
Research Assistant Communications Specialist (CSDS)

Lawrence T. Brown, PhD
Director of County Health Rankings & Roadmaps, Visiting Associate Professor in the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (CHR&R)

Luc Anselin
Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology at the College, Director of the Center for Spatial Data Science, & a Senior Fellow at NORC. (CSDS)

Marjorie Givens, PhD
Associate Director, Population Health Institute (CHR&R)

Mathew Cerf
Media and Data Strategy Fellow (Justice and Empowerment Initiatives)

Moksha Menghaney
Community Mapping Analyst (CSDS)

Nancy Goede
Senior Pastor (Augustana Lutheran Church)

Robert Martin
Software Engineer

Roger L. Chaufournier
CEO (CSI Solutions)

Ryan Wang
Spatial Data Science Fellow Data Analyst (CSDS)

Sihan Mao
Senior Data & Policy Analyst, City of Pittsburgh (CSDS Alumni)

Stephanie Yang
Spatial Data Science Fellow Data Engineer (CSDS)

Sterling Fearing
Sociology MA Student (UChicago)

Steve Goldstein, PhD
Botany, Biostatistics and Medical Informatics (UW-Madison)

Steven Wangen
Assistant Scientist at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, and Data Scientist at the American Family Insurance Data Science Institute. (UW-Madison)

Toni Williams
Vice President (Burness Communications)

Vidal Anguino
Software Engineer (CSDS)

Research Coalition Partners

Awards and Recognition

User Feedback

We are grateful to the invaluable feedback provided in multiple user group meetings throughout the Atlas’s development, including representatives from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Research Center, Apple, Harvard T.H. Chan School of PH, Henry Ford Health System, Indian Health Service, National Association Community Health Centers, and more. Thank you:

Andy Beck, David Hartley, Cole Brokamp, Robert Jahn, Bela Patel, Nirav Shah, Elijah Meeks, John Brownstein, Don Goldmann, Maureen Bisognano, Don Berwick, Kathy Reims, Roger Chaufournier, Wes Luckey, Annette Phillips, Richard Davis, Juliana Sadovich, Bruce Finke, Jeffrey McCollum, Don Goldman, Kathy McNamara, Julia Skapik, Ron Yee, Caroline Tiller, John Schapman, Linda Parlette, Wendy Brzezny, Sahuara Suval, Christal Eshelman, Laura Sisulak, Carly Hood-Ronick, Barry Kling, Barbara West, Kim Lepin, Joshua Austin, Jeff Coben, Kathleen Clark