The next Alumni University event will feature Lulu Kang, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics, who will give a presentation on “Fair and Diverse Allocation of Scarce Resources” on Thursday, April 21 from 5:30–6:30 p.m. The event will be virtual.

We aim to design a fairness-aware allocation approach to maximize the geographical diversity and avoid unfairness in the sense of demographic disparity. During the development of this work, the COVID-19 pandemic is still spreading in the U.S. and other parts of the world on large scale. Many poor communities and minority groups are much more vulnerable than the rest.

To provide sufficient vaccine and medical resources to all residents and effectively stop the further spreading of the pandemic, the average medical resources per capita of a community should be independent of the community’s demographic features but only conditional on the exposure rate to the disease.

This prevention-centered strategy seeks a balance between geographical coverage and social group fairness. Lulu’s presentation will talk through proposed principles to be applied to other scarce resources and social benefits allocation.

For more information and to register for the event, go to https://www.iit.edu/alumniuniversity