Mathematical Modeling of Cell Function and Infectious Diseases
An effective approach to studying an infectious disease process is through mathematical and computational models - either at the population-level (epidemiology) or cellular-level (immunology). This offers a complement to experimental or clinical approaches, and can predict rich and sometimes unforeseen dynamical behavior. A recent example this approach has been to define the onset of severe forms of influenza as a ‘phase transition’ in the spread of viral infection in the epithelial layer of the lung.
Models of chemotaxis and competitive chemotactic processes are being investigated, incorporating simplified models of individual cells, and transport processes inside cells, to explain their motility and shape.
Astrophysics of Binary Star Systems
There are two projects. The first one is to explore mathematically the dynamical behaviour of an exoplanet orbiting a host star, taking into account precessional motion of both the star and the orbit, and resonances between the star’s oscillations and the orbital motion. Transitions into and out of resonance are being investigated to explain the period and primary eclipse anomalies in the observed data of the system Kepler-13.
The second project examines the effects of stellar winds arising from the late-type secondary in subdwarf OB binary systems caused by irradiation of the cool secondary star by the hot primary component, and the interaction of the wind with the magnetic field of the secondary, in order to explain the observed period changes in these systems.
