Nicholas Reich 
Professor of Biostatistics | University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amhesrst, MA, UNITED STATES
Nicholas Reich's research focuses on infectious disease modeling and optimizing design and analysis for cluster-randomized studies.
Spotlight
Areas of Expertise (7)
Influenza Pandemics
COVID-19 (Coronavirus) forecast models
COVID-19 forecasting
Biostatistics
Infectious disease forecasting
COVID-19 (Coronavirus)
Flu forecasting
Biography
Nicholas Reich has been on the forefront of analyzing models that forecast the Covid-19 pandemic. His work has been featured in publications around the world, including the New York Times, Science magazine and Foreign Policy.
He runs the UMass-based CDC Influenza Forecasting Center of Excellence, one of two in the nation. It has produced some of the world’s most accurate models in recent years, In April 2020 he developed a Covid-19 forecasting hub that unifies multiple models in an effort to produce a more accurate picture of the potential impacts of the novel coronavirus.
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Education (2)
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: Ph.D., Biostatistics
Carleton College: B.A., English
Links (2)
Press Coverage (6)
Surveys of infectious disease experts aim to predict COVID-19’s toll
Science magazine print
2020-04-23
Statistical models of infectious disease are vital for understanding where the COVID-19 pandemic is headed. But their predictive power can be limited by sparse data and rapidly changing circumstances.
In UMass flu forecasters’ COVID-19 model, decisions shape the curve
Daily Hampshire Gazette print
2020-04-23
As leaders around the world use COVID-19 forecast models to guide responses to the pandemic, a research team at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has created an interactive, publicly available model compiling data from leading international reports.
What 5 Coronavirus Models Say the Next Month Will Look Like
The New Yotk Times print
2020-04-22
Nicholas Reich, a biostatistician who runs a seasonal flu forecasting lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, said it was important to collect outputs from all the models, because of the uncertainty around all the projections.
Best-Case And Worst-Case Coronavirus Forecasts Are Very Far Apart
FiveThirtyEight online
2020-04-02
Building a model to forecast the COVID-19 outbreak is really freaking hard. That’s one reason we’ve been following a weekly survey of infectious disease researchers from institutions around the United States.
‘Flu-like’ data might help track coronavirus spread. Why did Florida stop publishing it?
Miami Herald print
2020-04-07
“In times like this, not having that raw data easily available to researchers limits our ability to analyze and report effectively on emerging trends of respiratory infections in Florida,” said Nicholas Reich, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Data shows social distancing has slowed down the coronavirus outbreak. But what’s next?
Vox online
2020-04-15
“It seems that the press has been eager to push the narrative of ‘we are near the peak!’ and ‘the end is in sight,’ but given the strong uncertainty about the future and lack of clear consensus among modelers, I think these messages are premature,” UMass infectious disease researcher Nicholas Reich argued.
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