Jessa Marley
Studying animal movement is key to understanding the links between an individual, its environment, and interactions with other individuals. We focus on grizzly bears in western Alberta over many years to determine bear movement strategies and the effects of changes in the environment on bear movement decisions. Using a combination of differential equations, statistics, and machine learning, we aim to delve deeper into the grizzly bear decisions and to reveal demography-dependent patterns.
Mijanur Rahman
Internet and social platforms have drastically changed the way humans interact and consume information which gives rise to the formation of different kinds of opinions in society. Opinion dynamics is the study of how individuals' opinions, beliefs, and attitudes change over time due to interactions with others within social networks. My research focuses on different mathematical frameworks, such as differential equations and agent-based simulations, to understand how individuals/ groups form and change their opinions, analyze the effect of rumours, and predict the spread of information.
Christian Wiewelhove
How do wildfires, clear-cutting, and thinning change the dynamics between predators and prey? My research models how Goshawks hunt Squirrels in different landscapes, factoring in forest density, regrowth speed, and the Squirrels’ territorial nature. through simulations, I’ll reveal how these changes influence this predator-prey system.
Samuel Street
My research is aimed at better understanding cancer development. How cancer comes to be from previously healthy pages. In order to perform this research I will be modifying a pre-existing model of cancer evolution and incorporating the effect of senescent cells.
Elise Arbo
My research introduces randomness into existing SIR-opinion models to move beyond the deterministic assumptions and better represent uncertainty inherent in real-world data. Through integrating the SIR-opinion models with both established and recently developed statistical estimation and smoothing techniques, I will address parameter identifiability to create a model that supports robust inference despite missing or noisy data. Using a COVID-19 dataset from Western Canada, this work aims to improve disease parameter estimation to better inform public health decisions.
Past Members
Sanuri Himansa
Analyzing changes in population dynamics is an interesting topic to begin with in the mathematical biology field; not only human population dynamics but also animal population dynamics because these studies help me apply what I learned in the classroom to the real world. Working on how and why populations change piques my interest, and working in this field keeps me curious about how populations will change in the future. These studies primarily make use of differential equations, curve drawings, and a different perspective on graph analysis.
Sarah Wyse
Climate action is desperately needed: even at the current warming of 1.1 degrees Celsius we are experiencing extreme heat waves, flooding, fires, and storms. It has been found that human activity is driving extreme weather patterns and we are nearing irreversible tipping points. My research uses mathematical modeling to determine the conditions under which small groups of citizens can influence their leaders and create political will for change.
Avneet Kaur
To effectively predict and respond to an outbreak it is crucial to understand human responses to information and misinformation, policy, and disease severity. We develop and analyze ordinary differential equations epidemiological models coupled with socioeconomic dynamics, with modelling of human behaviour supported by current research in sociology and psychology. These models help us get insights into the rich disease dynamics like multiple peaks of varying heights, fear taking off before the disease, bifurcation in the final size, etc. A better understanding of the disease dynamics can help assess the effectiveness of intervention strategies and inform public health policies.
Ian Chambers
Invasive species are introduced organisms that lack biological controls and adversely affect ecosystems and cause economic damage. In the Okanagan, the codling moth is an invasive species that affects the orcharding industry, causing significant damage to apple crops. I use mathematical models to study codling moths and the factors that affect their survival to investigate management strategies.
Noah Marshall
Matthew Saurette
Sarah MacQueen
Pau Capera Aragones
Maria Martignoni Mseya
Geoff Goetz
Nourridine Siewe
Maziyar Jalaal
Andrea Hyde
Shaun Strohm
Garrett Culos
Katrina Williams
Alexander Bläßle
Haley Dirksen
