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(above) INI's Susan Gowans, Christie Marr and David Abrahams conducting a socially-distanced management team meeting at the Institute in September.
INI NEWS BULLETIN
September 2020
Dear friends, associates and supporters of INI,
Welcome to the September 2020 edition of our monthly news bulletin. Top of the Institute's priorities continues to be the reopening of our main buildings to participants, but as you will read below there is still much to interest until this becomes a reality.
In this bulletin you will find: a podcast interview with Professor Julia Gog (Cambridge), an exciting announcement regarding the continuation of the "Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics" programme, and a new resource on our website regarding past and future Summer Schools.
Thanks as always for your continued support, and we look forward to returning to normal working conditions as soon as possible.
- INI Communications team
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Contact: communications@newton.ac.uk
PODCAST OF THE MONTH: "How to win at Pandemic", an interview with Professor Julia Gog.
(above) Professor Julia Gog.
"Mathematical modelling has played an unprecedented role in informing public health policy on the control of the current COVID19 pandemic"... so in episode #25 of the INI podcast Dan Aspel spoke to one of the most influential figures in that sphere: Professor Julia Gog. Julia is Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge, with a particular focus on pandemic influenza. She has spent
the past six months working in and alongside UK government groups, such as the "Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies" and has concurrently been a co-Organiser of the INI programme "Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics" (the abstract of which provided the above quote). In her downtime she has been making plans for her recent Rosalind Franklin Award funding, enjoying some Twitter interactions with the Reverend Richard Coles and using a crack team of colleagues to win at the popular board game "Pandemic"...
00:00 - Introduction
01:33 - An “absolutely bonkers year”
03:40 - Operating virtually and in a reactive capacity
07:20 - Working alongside government groups (SPI-M and SAGE)
09:15 - The “common room dynamic” of INI
09:40 - … and playing Pandemic (the board game)
10:40 - A new kind of research, with surprises from “age-mixing” data
16:38 - All about RAMP ("Rapid Assistance in Modelling The Pandemic")
18:40 - Receiving the Rosalind Franklin award: “a beam of light in some difficult months”
21:38 - Working with the Millennium Maths Project to encourage girls and women in mathematics
29:00 - “I remember being able to pursue what I thought was interesting, and nobody steered me away”
30:40 - Recommendations and Twitter experiences (featuring the Reverend Richard Coles)
33:35 - … and, finally, how to win at Pandemic
PROGRAMMES: "Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics" to continue until the end of 2020.
(above) lead image for the "Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics: Mathematical and statistical challenges in understanding the dynamics of infectious disease pandemics" programme.
The "Future Pandemics" workshop may have concluded on 25 September, but we are thrilled to announce that this will no longer signify the end of the "Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics" programme. The Institute has made the decision to support further activities of the programme until at least the end of 2020. As well as continuing the regular coffee/tea discussion sessions, this includes the possibility of having informal presentations, plenary lectures and running short workshops. The continuation will enable follow-up from the workshops and discussion groups from the past five months.
To learn more about the programme, and to apply to be involved in its activities via the "expression of interest" form, please click the link below.
WEBSITE UPDATE: new Summer Schools reference page added.
The Isaac Newton Institute has been running Summer Schools (as well as Autumn, Winter and Spring Schools) since its inception. These schools typically include tutorial sessions which provide an introduction to the field. Viewed as an invaluable resource not only to early career researchers but to the mathematical sciences community more broadly, seminars given during these sessions are referred to time and again as common ground from which to build a mathematical discussion both during and after the programme.
We are pleased to say that a new page has been launched on www.newton.ac.uk which details the most significant of the Institute's past and future Summer Schools (as well as those held at other points of the year). Links to related talks and recorded talks are included within each listing. We hope that this will be a useful resource and invite you to share it with others.
