Artificial intelligence expert to speak at WCSU about COVID data

Western Connecticut State University Department of Philosophy and Humanistic Studies will present Dr. Rick Lawrence, of Ridgefield, for a discussion, "COVID-19: Perspectives from a Data Scientist," at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 3, in Room 125 of the Science Building on the university's Midtown campus, 181 White St., Danbury. The talk is free and open to the public in-person (masks must be worn) or virtually through this link. The program is also sponsored by WCSU's Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics. Lawrence currently volunteers as the COVID data scientist on Ridgefield's COVID-19 Task Force, providing daily analysis of the latest COVID-19 data to help town officials make science-based policy decisions, and provides periodic analysis of vaccination rates to the Office of the Governor of Connecticut. Lawrence's work has evolved from nuclear science to computer science to machine learning and, most recently, to quantitative finance.