Current group members


Jessica M. Conway (PI)

Jessica is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Penn State. She is also graduate faculty in the Department of Biology and affiliated with the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics (CIDD). She is interested in modeling viral infections at the within- and between-host levels, with particular emphasis on the interplay between infection and intervention. For more details, see Research .






Ellie Mainou (Graduate student, 2019-present)

Ellie is a graduate student in Biology at Penn State. She is investigating mechanisms of HIV viral rebound and post-treatment control via novel mathematical models. Before joining the group in Fall 2019, Ellie completed a Bachelor's degree at Smith University and a Masters in Biology at Emory University under the supervision of Katia Koelle.


FORMER MEMBERS


Olga Dorabiala (Undergraduate research, 2016-2018)

Olga is a math major at Penn State. She's modeling the use of antiretroviral therapy for HIV taken in advance of exposure to the virus, to prevent infection (termed pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP for short). Specifically she's using detailed models of the drugs in conjunction with a stochastic infection model to investigate short-term, "on-demand" PrEP. Olga will is now in the PhD program in Applied Math at the University of Washington in Sept 2018.


Emily Sellinger (Undergraduate research, 2017-2019)

Emily is a biology major at Penn State, co-supervised by Kurt Vandegrift. She's investigating the mouse (P. leucopus) population dynamics. These mice are the natural reservoir for the bacteria responsible for Lyme disease. Her aim is to ultimately couple the tick 2-year life cycle with a detailed model of mouse population dynamics to help predict the risk of Lyme diseases in humans both temporally and spatially. Emily is the recipient of an Erickson Discovery Grant.


Hannah Herriott (Undergraduate research, 2016)

Hannah was a mathematics major with a biology minor at Penn State. She's modeling the use of antiretroviral therapy for HIV taken in advance of exposure to the virus, to prevent infection (termed pre-exposure prophylaxis, PrEP for short).








Rachel Hoellman (Undergraduate research, 2015-2017)

Rachel was an industrial mathematics major at Penn State. She used models to investigate optimal age-targeting vaccination strategies to reduce infection and mortality, when a vaccination campaign is rolled out mid-epidemic. Which is exactly what happened during the last pandemic, i.e. the pH1N1 epidemic in 2009.