Example of an Abstract for Graduate Showcase Submission

Below is an example of a well crafted abstract that was submitted by a past participant in the RIT Graduate Showcase. This example is being used with the permission of the author.

"Mathematical models have been an important tool during the COVID-19 pandemic to predict spikes in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. However, there is relatively little information available regarding reliability of model predictions. We developed a general model validation framework for epidemiological models focused on predictive capability for questions relevant to decision-making end-users. We applied the framework to retrospectively assess accuracy of death and hospitalization predictions for several COVID-19 models. COVID-19 models are typically comprised of multiple releases and provide predictions for multiple localities. These characteristics are systematically accounted for in the framework, which is based around a set of validation scores or metrics that quantify model accuracy of specific quantities of interest including: date of peak, magnitude of peak, rate of recovery, and monthly cumulative counts. Performance varied greatly across models as well as the peak events analyzed. In general, the models were more reliable for identifying peaks had occurred versus yet to occur and death predictions were more accurate than hospitalization predictions. Our framework provides a wealth of information on the predictive accuracy of epidemiological models and could be used in future epidemics to evaluate new models or support existing modeling methodologies, thereby aiding in informed model-based public health decision-making."