Julia Gog is Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge and co-lead of the JUNIPER network. Gog is also a member of the Scientific Pandemic Infections group on Modelling (SPI-M), an advisory group of the Department of Health and Social Care which provides expert advice to the UK government based on infectious disease modelling and epidemiology and fed results into the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) during the COVID-19 pandemic.
From tiling bathrooms to fooling cancer cells, and from new insights in topology to bringing research into the classroom — we hope you enjoy our April round-up!
We're proud to announce the launch of a school curriculum and public engagement project which gives a hands-on experience of mathematical research and its benefits for society.
With just some simple arithmetic, you can build a basic mathematical model of how a disease might spread. Julia Gog explains how, and there's also some Lego action...
You can explore how we might extend our model but running your own epidemic with our Lucky Dip interactivity. Follow along with Julia as she paves the way to a model that is very similar to the mathematics disease modellers use every day.
In Part 3 Julia refines our model to use one of the most important numbers in disease modelling. And there's a chance for you to explore its meaning using a new interactivity.
In the final Part we explore what other aspects we need to consider to make a model more realistic. There's an interactivity that allows you to party, commute, and visit friends and we find out more about what life as a research is like from Julia.
In this final part, you can meet the researchers themselves and find out about the real research questions that Julia and some of her colleagues are working on!
What is the growth rate and what does it tell us about an epidemic?
What is herd immunity and what does it have to do with a number called R?
