João holds a Medical degree and a BSc in Computational and Applied Mathematics, both from the University of São Paulo, and a MASt in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge, he focused on stochastic analysis and PDEs. In his essay, he studied the convergence of Markov processes related to different stochastic models which are usually employed to simulate recurrent reaction-diffusion systems in biology. Outside Maths and Biology, João enjoys reading, cooking and playing video-games.

Research project title:
Expanding Populations and Fitness

Supervisor(s):
Sarah Penington and Marcel Ortgiese

Project description:
Random mutations that occur near the colonisation front in an expanding population can survive in the population by ‘surfing’ on the population expansion, even if the mutations themselves are deleterious. In this project, we will work towards rigorously determining the large-scale behaviour in a model of this phenomenon introduced in a recent non-rigorous biology paper by Etheridge and Foutel-Rodier (Theor Pop Biol, 2020).