Dr. Kwame Asante

Background

Kwame built agent-based economic models to study market fragility during supply chain shocks. His fellowship at the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research drew a direct line between his modeling tools and infectious disease dynamics — agents, after all, are people, and markets are networks. His economic-epidemiological hybrid models now inform outbreak response policy across West Africa.

The leap story

“An economic shock and an epidemic propagate through social networks using the same underlying mathematics. The difference is what the "contagion" is. I stopped caring which department owned the question.”