The annual Marden Lecture in Mathematics will feature Milwaukee native and renowned mathematical biologist Lauren Ancel Meyers.
Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers will discuss how data science, mathematics and computing are used to measure the speed and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, forecast COVID-19 deaths across the United States, and provide guidance to various constituencies involved in making public health policy. This virtual event is on Thursday, Nov. 19, at 4 p.m.
The seminar is free and open to the public and can be joined on Zoom using meeting ID 849 3992 4497 and passcode HKG+5J.
The daughter of two UWM professors, Meyers graduated from Nicolet High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in math and philosophy from Harvard University and a PhD in biology from Stanford University. She currently is a professor at the University of Texas-Austin in the Integrative Biology and Statistics & Data Science departments, the latter of which she founded. Meyers is also the director of the COVID-19 Modeling Consortium at the university, a unit that brings together scientists, social scientists and engineers to develop innovative models for surveilling, forecasting and mitigating COVID-19.
Meyers is a renowned pioneer in network epidemiology and the use of machine learning in epidemic and pandemic detection, forecasting and control. Her team has built tools for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies to fight influenza, Ebola, HIV, the Zika virus and now COVID-19. She has published more than 100 peer-reviewed research articles and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post and on National Public Radio, CNN and the BBC, to name a few. Named one of the top 100 global innovators under age 35 by the MIT Technology Review in 2004, she also received the Joseph Lieberman Award for Significant Contributions to Science in 2017 given by the Center for Excellence in Education.
The Marden Lecture is an annual event featuring a current science topic being addressed through mathematic and data tools. It is funded by a generous gift from the family of Morris and Miriam Marden.