Tatiana Loboda Awarded $1M Grant to Create Early Warning Systems for Infectious Diseases in Indonesia
Loboda will use satellite technology to help health officials prepare for, and more effectively manage, outbreaks of malaria and dengue
Professor Tatiana Loboda, chair of the Department of Geographical Sciences, has received a $1,093,841 grant from NASA to support the development of satellite-based systems that would help Indonesian health officials anticipate outbreaks of malaria and dengue, and allocate resources more effectively when outbreaks occur.
“Indonesia is one of the most vulnerable countries to environmental pollution and infectious diseases,” said Loboda. “We are hoping to reduce the burden on public health agencies by providing timely actionable forecasts of potential outbreaks of malaria and dengue using satellite imagery.”
Mosquito-borne disease patterns are shifting with climate change-induced temperature rises and changing rainfall patterns. At the same time, growing parasite drug resistance is making these diseases more difficult to control, increasing the need for preventive action. Geographical scientists like Loboda examine how environmental shifts drive disease patterns, bringing critical insight to where and when outbreaks are likely to occur.
This project builds on Loboda’s ongoing efforts to apply remote sensing to public health challenges. Since 2014, she has worked to bridge gaps between geospatial science and medicine, collaborating with medical researchers to monitor and forecast malaria outbreaks in Southeast Asia. In 2017, she joined a multi-institutional team funded by the National Institutes of Health to establish a Center of Excellence for Malaria Research in Myanmar, where she supported the global malaria elimination agenda and helped build regional capacity in satellite-based monitoring.
Loboda’s team at the University of Maryland, including Associate Research Professor Dong Chen, will work in partnership with Malaria No More’s Institute for Health Modeling and Climate Solutions (IMACS), the Indonesian private company KORIKA and the Indonesian Ministry of Health. This multidisciplinary effort is part of the larger ClimateSmart Indonesia initiative, which seeks to enhance national epidemiological surveillance through climate-informed forecasting tools.
With the support of the NASA grant, Loboda’s team will bring Earth observation into predictive models, dashboards and digital twin systems that the Indonesian government can use to strengthen outbreak preparedness, particularly in regions where healthcare systems are under pressure.
The grant was awarded through NASA’s Earth Science Division under the Health and Air Quality program of its Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES-2024) initiative.
Image via rawpixel: An Aedes aegypti mosquito, the primary vector of dengue fever, draws a blood meal from a human host.
Published on Thu, 07/31/2025 - 17:09