Case Study: Purdue University achieves rapid COVID contact tracing and safe campus reopening with VMware Tanzu

Purdue University Uses Big Data to Defeat Pandemic Shutdowns

Purdue University, a large public research university in West Lafayette serving more than 49,000 students, faced the threat of prolonged COVID‑19 shutdowns in 2020 that would disrupt in‑person instruction. The provost’s Institutional Data Analytics + Assessment team, led by Ian Pytlarz, was charged with using campus data to safely bring students back and avoid repeated closures.

Using VMware Greenplum as a high‑scale analytics platform, the team fused Wi‑Fi access logs, card and dining swipes, class schedules and hourly test results to build a real‑time proximity contact‑tracing system with strong privacy governance. The system processed billions of potential contacts, delivered actionable alerts to medical teams within minutes, helped Purdue remain open after August 2020 with no major outbreak, and contributed to rising student interest and ongoing investments in machine learning.

Purdue University

Ian Pytlarz

Lead Data Scientist, Institutional Data Analytics + Assessment