My interests lie at the interface of mathematics and biology, specifically mathematical modeling of population dynamics in the fields of ecology and epidemiology.  My specialization is in model selection, where one tries to answer the question of which mathematical model best represents a system or best explains a set of data.  By selecting the most parsimonious model (the model that best balances simplicity with goodness of fit), we can answer important questions about the populations under study.  Typical questions one can answer with these methods are, “How long will it take for this population to go extinct under the current conditions?” or “How many people do we need to vaccinate to eradicate this disease?”