Professor

Dr. Porco, Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Ophthalmology, is a mathematical epidemiologist and biostatistician who has contributed to projects involving trachoma, Ebola virus disease, measles, and other communicable diseases. He has been the biostatistician for numerous NEI RCTs, including MUTT I and II, SCUT II, TANA I and II, SWIFT, FAST, ADJUST, and KETFO, and multiple BMGF trials including PRET-Niger, MORDOR I and II, NAITRE, CHAT, and CHATON. He is multiple PI on the NEI Trachoma Forecasting grant, and PI on an NIH EBOLA forecasting grant. He has been co-Investigator on NIH and other grants using search, social media, mobile health, deep learning, digital surveillance, and large clinical registry datasets to remotely study infectious, inflammatory, pediatric, and age-related eye conditions. His team has found significant correlations of social media data (Twitter, Google Search, Wikipedia) with clinically validated seasonality of eye disease and with detection of worldwide ocular epidemics. They have studied the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on global eye health and on other communicable disease, using search and social media. They have begun using LLMs of social media text to validate reported disease. They also have recently begun use of targeted social media campaigns to identify and recruit study subjects for interactive components of their digital surveillance studies. Dr. Porco has considerable experience in mentoring residents and research fellows in study design, having a hand in most of the resident and fellow research projects over the last ten years. Scholars interested in mathematical modeling and biostatistics may identify Dr. Porco as a Mentor.

https://profiles.ucsf.edu/travis.porco


 

Infectious Diseases, Cornea, Epidemiology
 
Learn more about UCSF Ophthalmology faculty research.