James is an investigator with Te Pūnaha Matatini, New Zealand's Centre of Research Excellence for Complex Systems and Data Analytics. She is interested in creating mathematical models for what are known as complex systems, including ecology and infectious diseases. When it came to the coronavirus pandemic, James and colleagues at Te Pūnaha Matatini decided to use their collective expertise to model the situation in New Zealand as it developed. The Te Pūnaha Matatini team used data from overseas to show how effective different policies might be in controlling the spread of infection. New modelsSince that initial SIR model, James and her colleagues have been working on other kinds of mathematical models.

Source: Otago Daily Times April 16, 2020 03:22 UTC