The Population Modelling and Epidemiology Teaching and Research Group comprises a broad spectrum of expertise from statistics, informatics and image processing to dynamical systems and time series analysis. The uniting theme of the group is the use of modelling techniques to extract information from complex data sets with an emphasis on practical problems.
Current research focuses on the epidemiology of infectious diseases, ecological complexity, marine and fisheries modelling, and mathematical cell biology.
Epidemiology and Statistical Informatics
The group has strong links with Health Protection Scotland (HPS) and the Veterinary Laboratory Agency (VLA) and collaborates both on a national and international level with experts in epidemiology and related fields.
Research focuses on public health and the epidemiology of infectious diseases in both animals and humans. Research interests include spatial statistics, experimental design and image processing; stochastic and deterministic differential equations for the modelling of infectious diseases and risk , particularly in relation to animal diseases.
Marine Population Modelling
The MPM group has strong research links with Marine Scotland as well as collaborations in large multi-university projects and with empirical scientists in other institutes.
The group uses mathematical models to solve a variety of ecological and biological problems including fish stock management, nutrient impacts on ecosystem dynamics, linkage between individual behaviour and population dynamics, the effects of ocean currents on the productivity of copepods and the effect of multispecies interactions on complex marine ecosystems.
Mathematical Biology
Research interests include the role of space in problems such as the speed and intensity of spatial epidemics, ecological complexity and evolutionary processes; models of antibiotic production; developmental cell signalling, cancer gene therapy and adaptive dynamics.
Teaching and Research Group members
Professor George Gettinby (Head of Group)
Statistics, mathematical modelling and epidemiology of animal and human diseases.
Dr Gwen Allardice
Medical statistics particularly relating to Health care Associated Infections (HAI) and AIDS/HIV.
Dr Alison Gray
Image analysis and processing; statistical pattern recognition; spatial statistics and data smoothing; spatial epidemiology.
Dr David Greenhalgh
Mathematical modelling of infectious diseases, particularly measles, mumps, rubella and HIV/AIDS amongst injecting intravenous drug users.
Professor William Gurney
Mathematical biology, particularly individual-population interactions and ecosystem stability.
Professor Mike Heath
Fisheries and marine modelling.
Dr Sharon Hutchinson
Epidemiology, particularly with respect to Hepatitis C.
Dr Louise Kelly
Risk analysis and mathematical modelling in veterinary and public health.
Professor Chris Robertson
Statistical models in epidemiology; regional variation in disease risk; meta analysis; stochastic models in infectious disease and vaccinations.
Dr Douglas Speirs
Fisheries and zooplankton modelling, spatial processes in marine systems and theoretical ecology.
Dr Steven Webb
Mathematical biology particularly tumour growth and therapy, cellular signalling, spatial complexity and adaptive dynamics.
Dr David Young
Medical statistics and epidemiology, particularly methods for the design, conduct and analysis of medical research studies within the NHS.
Associate members
Professor Eddie McKenzie
Forecasting systems and methodology, time series analysis and modelling, and non-linear processes.
Post Doctoral Researchers
Research Students