The Midwest Mathematical Biology Seminar will be a series of virtual talks on mathematical biology featuring speakers from the Midwest region and beyond. All areas of mathematical biology will be represented in the seminar series, and a goal for this seminar is to build connections and foster research collaborations.
Schedule (Fall 2025)
(All talks at 11am Eastern Time / 10am Central Time on Tuesdays)
Zoom link: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/84907159401?pwd=JboBtq30vntVuEpj8s3yYfAdwlb258.1
September 2: Tin Phan (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
September 9: Maliha Ahmed (MIT)
September 16: Peter Thomas (Case Western Reserve University)
September 23: Maxwell Kreider (Penn State)
September 30: Po-Chun Kuo (Purdue University)
October 7: Naghmeh Akhavan (University of Michigan)
October 14: Hwai-Ray Tung (University of Utah)
Title: Strolling through space - missed antibiotic doses and extreme first passage times
Abstract: In the first half of the talk, we consider the effects of different patient responses after missing an antibiotic dose using a mathematical model that links antibiotic concentration with bacteria dynamics. We show using simulations that, in some circumstances, (a) missing just a few doses can cause treatment failure, and (b) this failure can be remedied by simply taking a double dose after a missed dose. We then develop an approximate random walk model that is analytically tractable and use it to understand when it might be advisable to take a double dose after a missed dose. In the second half, we ask how long it takes for a searcher to find a target when searchers are being added over time. This quantity is of interest in a variety of biological scenarios, including cell signaling, ant foraging, and finding mates with pheromones. Our rigorous theory applies to many models of stochastic motion, including random walks on discrete networks and diffusion on continuous state spaces, and our results constitute a rare instance in which extreme value statistics can be determined exactly for strongly correlated random variables.
October 21: Folashade Agusto (University of Kansas)
October 28: Hyukpyo Hong (University of Wisconsin — Madison)
November 4: Ruby Kim (University of Michigan)
November 11: Swati Patel (Oregon State University)
November 18: Cody FitzGerald (Northwestern University)
November 25: Farshad Shirani (Emory University)
December 2: Ted Loch-Temzelides (Rice University)
December 9: Binan Gu (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
December 16: Tyler Simmons (University of Minnesota)
Schedule (Spring 2025)
(All talks at 4pm Eastern Time / 3pm Central Time on Fridays)
January 24: Bo Deng (University of Nebraska, Lincoln)
January 31: Mingchao Cai (Morgan State)
February 7: Claus Kadelka (Iowa State University)
February 14: Peter Hinow (University of Wisconsin Milwaukee)
February 21: Chengcheng Huang (University of Pittsburgh)
February 28: Veronica Ciocanel (Duke University)
SPECIAL TIME (2pm Eastern Time / 1pm Central Time)
March 7: Adrian Lam (Ohio State University)
March 14: Sabrina Streipert (University of Pittsburgh)
March 21: Merlin Pelz (University of Minnesota)
March 28: Meghan Ferrall-Fairbanks (University of Florida)
April 4: Zixuan Cang (North Carolina State University)
April 11: Jia Gou (University of California Riverside) Cancelled by the speaker.
April 18: Stephanie Dodson (Colby College)
April 25: Montie Avery (Boston University)
May 2: Bo Zhang ( Oklahoma State University)
Zoom Link: https://illinois.zoom.us/j/82616248519?pwd=CAR0v0aaIpTnIVwxJDa59wFvusobot.1.
May 9: Mario Gómez Flores (Florida State University)
Schedule (Fall 2024)
(All talks at 2pm Eastern Time / 1pm Central Time on Fridays)
September 6: Al Holder (Rose Hulman Institute of Technology)
September 13: Jichun Xie (Duke University)
September 20: Samantha Linn (University of Utah)
September 27: Guowei Wei (Michigan State)
October 4: Polly Yu (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
October 11: Laurel Ohm (University of Wisconsin–Madison)
October 18: Hongsong Feng (Michigan State)
October 25: Alexandria Volkening (Purdue University)
November 1: Hyunjoong Kim (University of Cincinnati)
November 8: Kelsey Gasior (University of Notre Dame)
November 15: Wai-Tong Louis Fan (Indiana University Bloomington)
November 22: Zhe Su (Michigan State)
December 6: Gregory Handy (University of Minnesota)
December 13: Erik Amezquita Morataya (University of Missouri)
This seminar series is co-organized by Ning Wei (Purdue University) and Daniel Cooney (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). You can sign up for email updates on the seminar series by joining the Midwest Mathematical Biology Google Group (https://groups.google.com/g/midwest-mathematical-biology-seminar/about).