Three conference/workshop opportunities are coming up in 2023. Please submit your work to these conferences/workshops. There is still time to register for the 6th Workshop on Viral Dynamics, to be held in Nagoya, Japan in 4 to 6 July 2023. The deadline to register is June 4. You can find out more details here. The International Workshop on Mathematical Biology 2023 (IWOMB 2023) will be held in Baguio, the Philippines on 26 and 27 July 2023. More details will appear here later so stay tuned! The deadline to submit abstracts for Epidemics 9 to be held in Bologna, Italy is 15 June 2023. The conference will be held on 28 November to 1 December 2023. You can find more details here.

Alex Cook will deliver the upcoming seminar on 24 May 2023. The title of the talk is “Lessons learnt from the first MIDSEA workshop”. MIDSEA Council would like to extend our invitation to you to our 7th session of the 2022/23 webinar series. In this session, A/Prof Alex Cook from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health will be sharing some experiences and insights gained during our first workshop at Koh Samui, Thailand. We hope you could join us on 24 May, at 12.30pm (Yangon), 1pm (Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta), 2pm (Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore) and 3pm (Jayapura) (Time Zone Conversion). You are welcome to share this invitation with your network to join this dialogue. For any queries, please feel free to contact Crystal (crystal.chua@nus.edu.sg).

First in-person workshop of MIDSEA. On behalf of the National University of Singapore (NUS), we are pleased to host the workshop conducted by the Modelling Infectious Disease for South East Asia (MIDSEA) to our Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, from 8 to 12 May 2023. This workshop has been co-funded by Temasek Foundation (TF) and NUS. During the visit, we will discuss “Modelling During A Public Health Emergency”. The workshop will be a mix of research talks, panel sessions and training sessions. We expect to have 40 participants from the region. We will focus on the challenges and advances made by various modelling communities in the area during the pandemic. We will also discuss the challenges faced by the region in the future and how we can work together to address them.

MIDSEA Summer School 2026 at UNIMAS in Kuching, Malaysia: Strengthened Networks for Shared Knowledge and Future Public Health Building regional public health capacity Following successful editions in the scenic coastal city of Quy Nhon, Vietnam, in 2024, and in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, home to the world-famous 9th-century UNESCO World Heritage temple complexes of Borobudur and Prambanan in 2025, the third MIDSEA Summer School continued in Sarawak, Malaysia. Held from 8 to 12 June 2026 at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) in Kuching, brought together MIDSEAers from local researchers, academics, public health practitioner, and emerging talents from Southeast Asia, India, Korea, Japan, and Australia to exchange knowledge and strengthen collaboration in infectious disease modelling. Set on the rainforest island of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island and a place rich in wildlife and ancient ecologies, the summer school further reinforced MIDSEA’s commitment to regional capacity building, and public health in climate resilience. Training in Real-World Public Health Challenges Hosted by the CSIT faculty at UNIMAS, the MIDSEA Summer School served as a space for technical training, cross-disciplinary research discussions, international networking, and cultural exchange. Created a learning environment where scientific knowledge could connect with regional collaboration and practical public health action. During the 5 days, MIDSEAers learned from experts from leading regional and international institutions; the National University of Singapore, Mahidol University, Mahasarakham University, Nanyang Technological University, the University of the Philippines Mindanao, the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Melbourne University, Monash University, and UNIMAS. Organized in collaboration with the Australian Government’s SPARKLE Programme and the Wellcome-funded Dengue Modelling Consortium, focused on equipping the next generation of infectious disease modelers and public health practitioners with tools to support outbreak preparedness and response. MIDSEAers joined their preferred four intensive training tracks. Track 1, Modelling 101, introduced early-career and newMIDSEAers to core concepts. Track 2, Simulation, and Track 3, Inference, helped the modelers strengthen their skills and apply more advanced techniques. Track 4, Modelling Heterogeneities, focused on integrating the complexity of infectious disease dynamics into more realistic public health challenges and solutions. Together, these tracks guided MIDSEAers from foundational concepts to advanced disease modelling techniques, epidemiological analysis, programming, simulation, computational methods, and operations research. Preparing for Tomorrow’s Challenges From knowledge to practice, MIDSEAers engaged in real-world public health concerns through intensive regional case studies and practice projects on dengue, rabies, influenza, COVID-19, HIV and RSV. Helping the modeler understand how modelling can support outbreak preparedness and decision-making. The training and workshop brought together parallel learning tracks, specialized plenary workshops, operations research sessions, MIDSEAers’s own research poster presentations, and collaborative group work. Together, these activities helped bridge the gap between infectious disease projections and practical public health decisions, while also showcasing emerging research from MIDSEAers and experts across the region and beyond. “…This opportunity was a doorway to a lifetime of “firsts”: my first airplane ride, my first time traveling internationally, and my very first poster presentation. …. Placed in Track 2: Simulations, I realized how vast the ocean of epidemiology truly is, taking a “first swim” in the vast sea of global academia is daunting, but this community made the water feel incredibly welcoming….” Jericho Roland Sueno MIDSEAer 2026, Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines A Glimpse of Borneo’s Wild Side: A reflection of Climate and Health After days of intense and deep modelling sessions, workshops, and discussions, MIDSEAers stepped outside the classroom to meet another side of Borneo. A visit to the Semenggoh Wildlife Centre offered a close look at orangutans in their protected habitat and a chance to reflect on how deeply human health is linked with the natural world. MIDSEAers were exposed to a reminder that climate change, shifting environments, wildlife habitats, and infectious disease risks are all part of the same bigger story. The day ended with good food and good conversation, as MIDSEAers continued exchanging ideas and building friendships across the region with delicious local Sarawakian cuisine and dishes. Strengthening Capacity, Sustaining Collaboration With the Philippines set to host the next MIDSEA Summer School in 2027 on its second largest islands with rich and diverse of sanctuaries, cultures and warming people, the network looks ready for even deeper collaboration and a shared commitment to public health security in our ‘middle of the SEA’. –Vidhyakorn Mahd-Adam