Lora Billings, Mathematical Sciences, CSAM, $799,310 award from NIH

Dr. Lora Billings has just been awarded a three year NIH grant for $799,310, along with her Co-Principal Investigators, Dr. Derek Cummings at Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Leah Shaw at the College of William and Mary.  Dr. Billings is part of a research team that includes scientists from both the life sciences and mathematical sciences communities. Through this collaborative research, the project aims to develop new mathematical models and methods that predict and prevent outbreaks of infectious diseases. The team will examine the dynamics of disease spread in fluctuating environments modeled at various population scales.

The objective of this research grant is to develop new mathematical models of infectious disease transmission that will effectively capture the impact of stochasticity of dynamics and lead to more effective control.  The group will study the dynamics of disease spread in fluctuating environments modeled at various population scales.  The research will lead to great insight into the mechanisms that allow a disease to successfully propagate in a population as well as new mathematical tools to analyze stochastic systems.

This grant is funded by an initiative to support innovative mathematics needed to solve important biological problems.   Considerable excitement has been generated in the research community about the impact of interdisciplinary efforts combining mathematical fields such as nonlinear analysis, stochastic dynamics, and network theory, with systems biology approaches such as population dynamics, epidemiology and immunology.