Café Mathématique: Modelling COVID-19: Resurgence, vaccines, and disease severity

December 9, 2020, The Fields Institute

Location: Online

Description

COVID-19 continues to burden the Canadian population. Mathematical modelling studies of COVID-19 infection and disease have been used to inform policy-makers every day of this pandemic. Come learn about these models from some of our Canadian experts!

Please register using the link in the right column to receive meeting details.

Panelist /biographies:

	Dr. Victoria Ng is an epidemiologist and mathematical modeller at the Public Health Agency of Canada, her expertise includes quantitative risk assessment, disease prioritization, infectious disease epidemiology and statistical/mathematical modelling of infectious diseases. She holds a PhD in epidemiology from the Australian National University; her doctorate explored predicting outbreaks of Ross River virus disease in Australia. Victoria completed her Postdoc at the Department of Population Medicine, University of Guelph and was the Epidemiologist Lead at Public Health Ontario before she joined the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2014. Her current projects include modelling the importation and transmission of exotic mosquito-borne diseases in Canada under current and projected climate change, developing quantitative tools to prioritize diseases of public health importance and incorporating artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques into public health research and practice. For much of 2020, Victoria’s focus has been on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic including developing an agent-based model to explore the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions for community COVID-19 transmission in Canada and using social media data to forecast COVID-19 incidence in Canada and to explore sentiments and adherence to COVID-19 public health measures.
	Dr. Matt Betti is an assistant professor of mathematics and computer science at Mount Allison University. His research usually focuses on the ecology and evolution of social insects (mainly bees). Since April, Matt has been focusing on modeling healthcare demand for disease outbreaks like the COVID-19 pandemic, how we can combine these models with available data, and modeling what the virus does inside the body. Matt is also a consultant for Health Canada and a member of the Public Health Agency of Canada's external modeling working group.
	Thomas Hillen, Dr. rer. nat., is Professor in Applied Mathematics at the University of Alberta. He is the current President of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematical Society (CAIMS) and Site-Director of the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences (PIMS). He obtained his PhD in Tuebingen, Germany, and he became faculty member at the University of Alberta in 2001. In 2015 he won the CAIMS Research Award. His expertise is valued by international grant agencies, and he is editor of some of the leading journals in Mathematical Biology. His work centers around mathematical physiology, modelling of cell movement and applications to cancer and infectious diseases. He has published about 80 publications and 6 textbooks, and has supervised a host of talented students and postdocs.