Research

Like many naturalists, my research is motivated by a fascination with life. As a mathematical biologist, I develop and apply mathematical and statistical tools to understand the ecological and evolutionary processes that shape our natural world.

Infectious Disease Modeling

Models play an important role in understanding how infectious diseases spread and, importantly, how public health strategies can mitigate this spread. Models that are informed by real-world data are even better. In this work, we use Bayesian inference methods to estimate parameters of detailed models for specific neglected tropical diseases and then use these model to test the effectiveness of control strategies.

Selected papers:

  • Davis CN, Castano S, Aliee M, Patel S, Miaka EM, Keeling MJ, Spencer SEF, Chitnis, N, and Rock KS. accepted. 2021. Modelling to quantify the likelihood that local elimination of transmission has occurred using routine gambiense human African trypanosomiasis surveillance data.

  • Aliee M, Castano S, Davis CN, Patel S, Miaka EM, Spencer SEF, Keeling MJ, Chitnis, N, and Rock KS. 2021. Predicting the impact of COVID-19 interruptions on transmission of gambiense human African trypanosomiasis in two health zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Transactions of The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 115: 245-252. [link]

Eco-Genetics Feedbacks

How do evolutionary processes that occur at the species level impact communities with multiple interacting species? In this work, we aim to address this questions by developing and analyzing multi-scale models that incorporate feedbacks between the genetic structure within species and the population dynamics of ecological communities.

Selected papers:

  • Cortez MH, Patel S, and Schreiber SJ. 2020. Destabilizing evolutionary and eco-evolutionary feedbacks drive eco-evo cycles in empirical systems. Proceedings of Royal Society B, 287. [link]

  • Patel S and Buerger R. 2019. Eco-evolutionary feedbacks between prey densities and linkage disequilibrium in the predator maintain diversity. Evolution, 73: 1533- 1548. [link]

  • Yamamichi M, Lyberger K, and Patel S. 2019. Antagonistic coevolution between multiple quantitative traits: matching interactions can be subsets of difference interactions. Population Ecology. [link]

Image: schematic of feedbacks between genetic architecture and ecological interactions

Coexistence Theory

Understanding the factors that influence whether species coexist with one another is a fundamental ecological question. In this work, we develop general theory on how ecological and evolutionary feedbacks affect stability and persistence of interacting populations. Some of this work was discussed in this Quanta Magazine article.

Selected papers:

  • Patel S, Cortez MH and Schreiber SJ. 2018. Partitioning the effects of eco-evolutionary feedbacks on community stability. The American Naturalist, 191: 381-394. [link]

  • Patel S and Schreiber SJ. 2018. Robust permanence for ecological equations with internal and external feedbacks. Journal of Mathematical Biology, 77: 79-105. [link]