Nina Fefferman Hosts Homeland Security Collaboration Meeting

As early as 2007, graduate student Eric Lofgren and Nina Fefferman analyzed the first accidental outbreak of an infectious disease using the virtual game “World of Warcraft: the Corrupted Blood Plague”.   Their work was featured on CBS and in an article in Time Magazine. Fefferman's use of virtual worlds in areas of health behavior and biosecurity has been supported primarily by the Department of Homeland Security, which sponsored the recent meeting here at Rutgers. As active members of the DHS efforts in Next-Generation Communications Interoperability, and based on their long track record of research in virtual/game worlds, the Fefferman laboratory was well represented, including graduate student Eric Lofgren and post-doctoral researcher Dr. Lazaros Gallos.

This discussion was just the start of a longer conversation that will hopefully hear, not only from experts, but also from interested users and public contributions. If you are interested in the details of the meeting (presentation slides and the notes from the meeting) or (more importantly) having your voice heard at this exciting early stage of development from an ongoing government project, please participate in the discussions on the Wiki Page for the meeting.