Spring 2015 Langston Hughes professor to look at malaria's spread


LAWRENCE — Folashade Agusto, the spring 2015 Langston Hughes visiting professor, will present “An Ancient Disease in Modern Times: The Mathematical Dynamics of Malaria Immuno-Epidemiological Model” at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in the Kansas Room of the Kansas Memorial Union. The presentation is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

Agusto is an associate professor of mathematics and statistics at Austin Peay State University and visiting professor with the University of Kansas Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. The Langston Hughes Visiting Professorship was established at KU in 1977 in honor of the African-American poet, playwright and fiction writer who lived in Lawrence from 1903 to 1916. The professorship brings a prominent or emerging minority scholar to KU for one semester each year.

Agusto’s interdisciplinary research work, which is at the interface of mathematics and biology, focuses on the formulation and analysis of mathematical models about transmission of human and animal infectious diseases. She applies mathematical techniques to answer epidemiology questions that are of concern to the public health sector. She has worked on diseases such as Ebola, avian influenza, tuberculosis (bovine and human), Johne’s disease, toxoplasma gondii and vector-borne diseases such as chikungunya and malaria.

In 2011, she co-organized an international workshop titled Malaria Modeling and Control: What Areas Should We Focus On? This summer Agusto will co-organize another international workshop: Malaria-Leishmania Co-infection at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis.

More information on the Langston Hughes Visiting Professorship, including a complete list of past recipients, is available online.

Mon, 04/06/2015

author

Jill Hummels

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