I was invited to give a lecture about seasonal and pandemic influenza, human and animal surveillance systems, and how we can use mathematical models to inform pandemic preparedness and response (including the COVID-19 pandemic). This was followed by a Q&A session, in which the students asked some excellent questions. My original lecture has been used in several iteration of this subject.
In a return to my academic roots, I co-lectured this subject with Prof Peter Stuckey, who was my lecturer for Computing Fundamentals A (433-141) all the way back in 2000.
Running for the first time, this subject introduces students to the concepts of infectious diseases modelling that are necessary in order to interpret modelling papers in the context of public health. Students will develop confidence in assessing whether model frameworks incorporate relevant knowledge and are "fit for purpose" to support decision making.
In the second iteration of this subject, we have adapted some of the content and assessment in response to student feedback from the 2016 edition (which was generally very positive).
I introduced several applications of mathematical modelling to renal physiology and infectious disease epidemiology, including probabilistic epidemic forecasting. I also emphasised the breadth of research applications available to people with strong mathematical skills!
In this course I discussed the role the kidneys play in homeostasis, introduced some basic renal physiology concepts, and presented an overview of several mathematical models of whole-kidney function and renal blood flow autoregulation.