People

The application of mathematics to biological problems has a long history, but the field has undergone a major expansion in the last couple of decades. The expansion has been prompted in part by the rapid increase in our ability to collect biological data and in part by the growing realization that mathematical approaches offer new ways to gain insight into the dynamics and functioning of biological systems.

Our faculty work across a broad range of biological systems, including physiology, developmental biology, infectious disease, tissue mechanics, ecology and evolution. They use a wide range of mathematical approaches, including ordinary and partial differential equations, and stochastic and simulation-based models. A common theme that runs through our work is confronting mechanistic models with data, so we have a shared interest in parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification.

Training of graduate students is an important component of our research efforts. It occurs within both the applied mathematics and biomathematics graduate programs and is supported by two research centers, the Center for Quantitative Sciences in Biomedicine and the Center for Research in Scientific Computation.