“Mathematical Modeling of Pandemics, COVID-19, and Social Consequences Across the Americas,” a town hall with University of Miami President Julio Frenk and ecologist Simon Levin, and moderated by scientists from the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute, a Mexican non-governmental research center, takes places Friday, May 29.
The webinar is hosted by the University’s Institute of the Mathematical Sciences of the Americas, launched in July 2019 as part of the Roadmap to Our New Century.
“COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of mathematics to the world in a way that perhaps nothing like it has done before,” said Robert Stephen Cantrell, director of the institute and chair of the Department of Mathematics. “This is a real opportunity for the institute to bring together a leading expert in public health with someone who can talk about the underlying math in a relatively elementary level for a wide audience to appreciate and understand.”
Cantrell described Levin, a longstanding member of the National Academy of Science and director of Princeton University’s Center for BioComplexity, as “one of the foremost authorities working at the interface of mathematics and biology.”
Frenk, former minister of health in Mexico and a global public health expert, is expected to talk about how scientific information is helping to guide health policy across the region, according to Cantrell.
Moderators Ernesto Lupercio, a geometer and topologist, and Gabriela Olmedo-Alvarez, a molecular biologist, are both associated with the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute, or CINVESTAV, its acronym in Spanish. Both are members, along with Levin, of the institute’s Scientific Advisory Committee.
The webinar begins at 9 a.m. Friday with presentations by both speakers, followed by a question-and-answer session. Visit Mathematical Modeling of Pandemics to register.
