Summer 2019 SMB Newsletter: Editorial – Society for Mathematical Biology

By Dr. Robin Thompson

Theme issues of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on modelling infectious disease epidemics

A pair of theme issues of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B about mathematical modelling of infectious disease outbreaks has just been released. These cover epidemics not only in human populations, but also in populations of animals and plants. These theme issues were guest edited by Dr Robin Thompson (University of Oxford and editor of the SMB Newsletter!) and Dr Ellen Brooks-Pollock (University of Bristol). For more information, see the links below.

Modelling infectious disease outbreaks in humans, animals and plants

Part I – Approaches and important themes – royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/374/1775

Part II – Epidemic forecasting and control – royalsocietypublishing.org/toc/rstb/374/1776

SMB Subgroups

SMB has seven subgroups, details and contact information can be found here. In this issue of the newsletter, two of the subgroups provide an update on their activities.

Mathematical Epidemiology Subgroup

The Subgroup on Mathematical Epidemiology brings together researchers who are interested in understanding the dynamics of infectious disease outbreaks – including dynamical modelling and statistical analysis. Topics of interest to the group are: deterministic and stochastic modelling of population dynamics of infectious diseases; statistical analysis of population-level infectious disease data; describing and modelling human behavioural decisions in relation to infectious diseases; control and eradication strategies for endemic infections; prevention and response strategies for emerging and re-emerging infections; effects of antimicrobial resistance; policy implications.

The Mathematical Epidemiology Subgroup will be hosting a mini symposium at the 2019 SMB annual meeting. For more details, read on here.

Education Subgroup

The Education Subgroup of SMB is comprised of members who desire to improve the teaching and mentoring of future scientists, and in particular undergraduate and graduate mathematical and computational biology researchers. As new research frontiers emerge, our members seek to understand the best practices to help future researchers of biological questions be successful in this space. Content areas include, but are not limited to the teaching and learning of modeling, computing, data science, and quantitative reasoning. Challenge spaces include, but are not limited to designing learning experiences across disciplines, defining and assessing outcomes for new interdisciplinary and technological spaces, integrating data with mathematical modeling, educational outreach initiatives, and providing an inclusive and diverse environment for learning and for the profession.

Read about the Education Subgroup’s events at the 2019 SMB annual meeting here.

Report of the Fifth conference on Computational and Mathematical Population Dynamics (CMPD5)

CMPD5 took place in May 2019 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was attended by over 200 participants. Professor Maia Martcheva (University of Florida) was one of the organisers, and has written this report about the conference.