Episode 4 · Professor Sandeep Juneja
Modeling Uncertainty: Epidemics, Markets & AI
An exploration of probability, operations research, how epidemics are modeled, and how to tell real AI progress apart from hype.
Course designed by Akshat Bhaskar.
This classroom page expands on ideas from the Episode 4 conversation with Professor Sandeep Juneja, who trained as a mechanical engineer at IIT Delhi, earned a Ph.D. in operations research at Stanford, and has spent his career modeling uncertainty across finance, epidemiology, and climate. He is Professor of Computer Science at Ashoka University and was previously Senior Professor and Dean at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai.
The episode moves from what a model actually is to how his team modeled the spread of COVID through Mumbai, and on to the present wave of AI: what it genuinely changes, where the hype outruns the substance, and the case of AI being used to probe the unsolved Navier-Stokes equations. The resources below turn those threads into things you can learn from, think with, explore, or teach. Nothing here offers investment or medical advice. The aim is to help you reason under uncertainty with clearer eyes.
START HERE · ACTIVITY
Should You Trust the Model?
A decision activity set during an outbreak. A model gives you a number. What do you actually do with it?
Start the activityLEARN
Student-friendly explainers.
- LEARNExplainer
Modeling Uncertainty 101
What a model actually is, why probability is the language of uncertainty, and how operations research turns messy problems into decisions.
Beginner9 min read
- LEARNExplainer
How Do You Model an Epidemic?
The SIR model, the reproduction number, exponential growth, and what the COVID models built in Mumbai could and could not tell us.
Intermediate11 min read
THINK
Questions, thought experiments, and challenges.
- THINKExplainer
AI: Where Hype Outruns Substance
A sorting activity for telling real, durable AI progress apart from marketing, framed around the way the episode weighs the recent wave of AI.
Intermediate10 min read
- THINKChallenge
The Decoded 7-Day Think-in-Models Challenge
A seven-day habit of noticing the models, assumptions, and uncertainty hidden inside everyday claims.
Beginner7-day challenge
EXPLORE
Reading lists and further resources.
- EXPLOREExplainer
What Are the Navier-Stokes Equations?
The equations behind every flowing fluid, why they are worth a million-dollar prize, and what it means to say they are unsolved.
Advanced10 min read
- EXPLOREReading list
Uncertainty, Epidemics & AI: A Reading List
Where to go next on probability, modeling, pandemics, and thinking clearly about artificial intelligence.
All levels6 min read
TEACH
Worksheets and classroom-friendly materials.