Margret Schmidt, TiVo’s Chief Design Officer and VP of Design & Engineering is our Newton Distinguished Innovator Lecturer. TiVo creates consumer products and software to deliver the ultimate viewing experience. According to their website, TiVo is “ like a cable box, a DVR, an Apple TV and a Slingbox... in a single experience. “ Margret is a Cal grad with an EECS degree. She has been with TiVo since 2001, (two years after they were founded). As the CDO, she is responsible for the design and development of all domestic and international TiVo products, including DVR and set-top box software, mobile and web apps, and the TiVo Service. She has received numerous accolades including Most Powerful Women in Cable award for the past 4 years and an Emmy.

Full story: http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2014/11/04/how-important-is-long-distance-travel-in-the-spread-of-epidemics/ Three scenarios comparing the spread of an epidemic based on the increasing likelihood that people travel long distances from the center of the outbreak. The two-dimensional model takes into account only those people who are susceptible and those who are infected. The epidemics start in the center of each square and, as time progresses, spread in space. Long-range jumps – mimicking air travel, for example – lead to sub-outbreaks. If long-distance jumps are rare, the main outbreak will quickly merge with the satellite outbreaks, leading to a rippling, wave-like growth (left). As the likelihood of long-distance jumps increases, the epidemic spread exhibits a super-linear power-law growth (center), stretched exponential or “metastatic” growth (right) or, in a worst case scenario, exponential growth (not shown). Graphic animations by Oskar Hallatschek, UC Berkeley, & Daniel S. Fisher, Stanford University. Video editing by Christian Collins, UC Berkeley Media Relations http://www.berkeley.edu http://www.facebook.com/UCBerkeley http://twitter.com/UCBerkeley http://instagram.com/ucberkeleyofficial https://plus.google.com/+berkeley