How "digital twins" could help us predict the future
623,750 views |
Karen Willcox |
TEDxUTAustin
• March 2022
From health-tracking wearables to smartphones and beyond, data collection and computer modeling have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Advancements in these areas have given birth to "digital twins," or virtual models that evolve alongside real-world data. Aerospace engineer Karen Willcox explores the incredible possibilities these systems offer across engineering, climate studies and medicine, sharing how they could lead to personalized medicine, better decision-making and more.
From health-tracking wearables to smartphones and beyond, data collection and computer modeling have become a ubiquitous part of everyday life. Advancements in these areas have given birth to "digital twins," or virtual models that evolve alongside real-world data. Aerospace engineer Karen Willcox explores the incredible possibilities these systems offer across engineering, climate studies and medicine, sharing how they could lead to personalized medicine, better decision-making and more.
This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxUTAustin, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Read more about TEDx.About the speaker
Karen E. Willcox is director of the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin.
Michael G. Kapteyn and Karen E. Willcox | SIAM News, 2021 | Article
"Digital Twins: Where Data, Mathematics, Models and Decisions Collide"
What are the mathematical concepts needed to make a digital twin a reality?
Michael G. Kapteyn, Jacob V. R. Pretorius and Karen E. Willcox | Nature Computational Science, 2021 | Article
"A probabilistic graphical model foundation for enabling predictive digital twins at scale"
Willcox's work proposes a formalism of a digital twin using graphical models. A graphical model emphasizes the modeling of interrelationships, which is critical in the digital twin setting. It also provides a natural mathematical setting for addressing uncertainty and complexity, which are arguably the two biggest barriers to scalable deployment and adoption of digital twins.
Steven A. Niederer, Michael S. Sacks, Mark Girolami and Karen Willcox | Nature Computational Science, 2021 | Article
"Scaling digital twins from the artisanal to the industrial"
A perspective on the challenges and opportunities of digital twins in engineering and precision medicine.
Anirban Chaudhuri, Graham Pash, David A. Hormuth II, et al. | arXiv, 2023 | Article
"Predictive Digital Twin for Optimizing Patient-Specific Radiotherapy Regimens under Uncertainty in High-Grade Gliomas"
Using an approach that they first developed for an aircraft digital twin, Willcox's group and oncology collaborators develop a methodology to create a digital twin for a cancer patient. (Note: this paper is in the final stages of review and will be accepted in Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence soon.)
Peter Coveney and Roger Highfield | Princeton University Press, 2023 | Book
Virtual You: How Building Your Digital Twin Will Revolutionize Medicine and Change Your Life
The visionary science behind the digital human twins that will enhance our health and our future.
Karen E. Willcox, Derek Bingham, Julianne Chung, et al. | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2023 | Article
"Opportunities and Challenges for Digital Twins in Biomedical Research"
What are the needs and opportunities to advance the mathematical, statistical and computational foundations of digital twins in applications across science, medicine, engineering, and society? (Note: this study will publish a National Academies report in Fall 2023.)
Karen E. Willcox and Luwen Huang | Design Science, 2017 | Article
"Network models for mapping educational data"
How might we leverage the mathematical and computational formalisms of digital twins to achieve better outcomes in education?
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This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxUTAustin, an independent event. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.
Read more about TEDx.