Nergal - Citizen Science for Epidemiology

We've started a new collaboration with Dr. Matthew Silk and PhD student Nitara Wijayatilake at the University of Edinburgh. They work mainly on the social dynamics, population biology and epidemiology of wildlife populations.

Together we're designing and building a free and open source online game to understand how people's social networks and decision making change how diseases spread. This will gather data to contribute towards Matt's research, but should also be fun and interesting to play in its own right.

The game is called Nergal, after the Mesopotamian god of disease and death. We thought it sounded cute, for something so terrifying.

The project is funded by the Royal Society, through Matt's University Research Fellowship, and runs from 2023-2028.