Beth graduated with an MSci Mathematics degree from the University of Birmingham in 2021, where she developed a keen interest for mathematical biology and in particular, topics with interdisciplinary or real-world applications.
Beth graduated with an MSci Mathematics degree from the University of Birmingham in 2021, where she developed a keen interest for mathematical biology and in particular, topics with interdisciplinary or real-world applications. As part of her final year project, she devised a new, agent-based model of collective motion, specifically designed to recreate the murmuration phenomena commonly observed in large flocks of starlings. The project’s findings are now being used to support the development of a new radar system, enhancing its capabilities for recognising and tracking bird flocks. Outside of mathematics, Beth likes to spend her free time reading, baking, knitting, and going on long dog walks with her Border Terrier, Dexter.
Research project title: Collective Motion Under Non-Reciprocal Pairwise Interactions
Supervisor(s): Richard James, Tim Rogers
Project description: Preliminary experimental work and mathematical modelling suggest that sexual conflict can give rise to non-reciprocal interactions and anomalously fast diffusion of pairs of Trinidadian Guppies (Poecilia reticulata). In the long-term, their behaviour also results in key ecological and evolutionary processes such as population dispersal and invasion of alien species. To combine the biology of pairwise interactions through to population level consequences will require mathematical models of processes at different time, spatial and social scales. In biological terms, such problems lie at the intersection of movement ecology and collective behaviour. Using mathematical techniques from agent-based modelling, mean-field and coarse-grained approximations and continuous time PDE modelling, the aim of the project is to develop a general framework, or suite of mathematical models, to interpolate between and extrapolate from one social, spatial and temporal scale to the next, modelling the effect on non-reciprocal social forces in Trinidadian Guppies on large-scale population structure and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of their behaviour.
Students joining SAMBa in 2021