Youyang Gu is a data scientist and practical machine learning expert.
He was the creator of covid19-projections.com, a site dedicated to accurate modeling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The site, which combined a classic infectious disease model with machine learning to make death forecasts for all 50 US states and 70+ countries, has been cited by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to help inform public health decision making. After its creation in April 2020, it quickly became one of the most widely featured and most accurate models in academia, media, government, and industry.
He was also a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Mortality Assessment.
Prior to his COVID-19 modeling work, Youyang honed his cross-disciplinary research skills in a variety of fields: tech, trading/finance, and sports analytics. He is a strong believer in using simple machine learning models to create practical predictions and solutions.
Youyang completed his Bachelor’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), double majoring in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Mathematics. He also received his Master’s degree at MIT, completing his thesis as part of the Natural Language Processing group at the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
His story has been featured in the 2014 book Young Leaders 3.0. In his free time, Youyang is either in the pool, in the saddle, or convincing himself that brick workouts are fun — and he occasionally remembers to rest.
