UVic information – College of Victoria

From predicting the unfold of COVID-19 to defending polar bears within the wake of local weather change, mathematical biology is rapidly turning into a significant instrument for addressing world issues. Throughout his 30 years within the area, Mark Lewis has been a part of its explosive development. Becoming a member of the College of Victoria in 2022 because the inaugural Gilbert and Betty Kennedy Chair in Mathematical Biology, Lewis is well-positioned to strengthen the self-discipline at UVic, whereas his quite a few analysis initiatives proceed to have in depth impacts around the globe. 

“[The field has] grown immensely and I’ve been lucky to be a part of that development,” says Lewis about this essential intersection between two areas of science. “I feel it’s as a result of a number of the thrilling new issues in arithmetic are popping out of biology.”

The UVic grad and 2012 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient might be educating undergraduate college students in a brand new undergraduate providing at UVic that mixes biology with arithmetic and statistics—a course Lewis needs had been out there when he began his educational journey. A Vancouver Island native with a love of the atmosphere, Lewis enrolled primarily in ecology programs, however rapidly found an inherent ability for arithmetic and veered extra in that path. After graduating together with his bachelor of science in biology and math/pc science, Lewis earned a doctorate in mathematical biology at Oxford College within the UK. He then spent 12 years within the US earlier than returning to Canada as a Canada Analysis Chair on the College of Alberta. Over the following twenty years, he developed a prolific analysis program making use of arithmetic to issues in a variety of topics, together with ecology, public well being and environmental sciences.

“Arithmetic is a robust lens by which we are able to perceive complicated processes in biology,” explains Lewis. “It has helped us uncover there’s all these connections between, for instance, most cancers biology and ecology—between a rising tumour and an invasive species. Though they arrive from very totally different locations, the equations really look very comparable.”

Making use of math to ecological issues

Maybe owing to his love of the atmosphere, Lewis has been drawn to work on real-world issues attributable to people, together with the impacts of local weather change, habitat destruction and industrial salmon farming.

His calculations relating to the motion patterns and power reserves of polar bears helped show the connection between altering ice circumstances (sometimes pushed by local weather change) and the productiveness of polar bear populations, ensuing within the species being added to the IUCN Pink Record in 2015. He’s utilized comparable fashions to knowledge on grizzly bears, wolves, caribou, Amazonian birds and pandas.

Lewis was a part of an interdisciplinary crew engaged on twenty years’ price of knowledge collected from the Broughton Archipelago (off the coast of northern Vancouver Island) inspecting the impression of sea lice from fish farms on wild salmon populations. That analysis confirmed that fish farms located in salmon migration corridors elevated the transmission of parasites from the farms to out-migrating juvenile salmon. By the tip of 2022, 14 fish farms within the Broughton Archipelago closed.

A unique pest, the mountain pine beetle, is an invasive species that causes extreme harm to timber in BC and is spreading into Alberta and Saskatchewan. Altering temperatures, attributable to local weather change, have an effect on the event of the beetle and its copy, in addition to the resiliency of the timber to the beetles. Lewis is utilizing machine-learning to foretell insect outbreaks, informing forest administration practices, and in the end serving to save forests.

I get a number of motivation from engaged on these [ecological] issues as I discover them tremendous fascinating. The hope is that we are able to modify what we do or how we work together with our surroundings to be higher stewards.”

–Mark Lewis

An thrilling time for brand spanking new scientists within the area

Lewis’s first style of analysis as an undergraduate pupil at UVic was working with famend mathematical epidemiologist Pauline van den Driessche. Virtually thirty years later, he was a part of a crew serving to handle one of many best epidemiological issues of our time—the COVID-19 pandemic. Lewis now leads a community of scientists devoted to modelling rising infectious illnesses in Canada to help with creating what’s confirmed to be an important public well being instrument.

“When a area is rising there’s rather more alternative,” says Lewis. “Once I prepare folks now, I’m coaching them for rising alternatives. It’s like using a wave.”

It’s a wave that wanted an anchor at UVic, which is strictly what Peter Loock, the dean of science, was on the lookout for when he employed a chair in mathematical biology at UVic. The creation of a chair place brings a distinguished scholar to the college who will contribute to educational applications by analysis, educating and repair. This endowed chair place is funded by a $3 million present from the property of Betty Kennedy. 

“We’re lucky the beneficiant present from the Kennedys’ property has allowed us to deliver somebody as completed and revered as Lewis to UVic,” says Loock. “His ardour for educating the following technology of mathematical biologists, mixed together with his numerous analysis portfolio will make sure the Kennedys’ present can have actually world impression.”

The Kennedy legacy

For Lewis, the chair place was definitely the precise alternative on the proper time in his profession, and he isn’t shy to confess he’s delighted to be again on Vancouver Island. “I assumed it could be enjoyable to strive a brand new set of challenges in a spot that I really like,” he says.

The funding helps a lab supervisor and lowered educating schedule that will increase his potential to develop analysis collaborations and contribute extra to the expansion of his area whereas establishing a hub at UVic. Though the identify recognition and status of the place is essential to him, Lewis is primarily motivated by the work itself.

“Lots of people don’t relate to math, however all of us care concerning the atmosphere and the way it’s altering. Placing these items collectively is what makes my job actually thrilling. It’s not purely mental. It’s a manner of connecting to the world… and utilizing the talents I’ve to enhance issues.”

UVic is a catalyst driving change and significant impression on a world scale by sturdy partnerships at house and internationally. In our educating, analysis and operations—and thru our native, nationwide and worldwide partnerships—the College of Victoria proudly helps and works to advance the United Nation’s Sustainable Improvement Objectives (SDGs). UVic’s dedication to local weather, environmental change and sustainability measures up—we’re second on the planet amongst universities for local weather motion as ranked towards the SDGs. Study extra about UVic’s 2022 rating by the Occasions Larger Training Influence Rankings.