Episode published: 15/09/20
“Mathematical modelling has played an unprecedented role in informing public health policy on the control of the current COVID19 pandemic”… so in episode #25 Dan Aspel spoke to one of the most influential figures in that sphere: Professor Julia Gog. Julia is Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge, with a particular focus on pandemic influenza. She has spent the past six months working in and alongside UK government groups, such as the “Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies” and has concurrently been a co-Organiser of the INI programme “Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics” (the abstract of which provided the above quote). In her downtime she has been making plans for her recent Rosalind Franklin Award funding, enjoying some Twitter interactions with the Reverend Richard Coles and using a crack team of colleagues to win at the popular board game “Pandemic”…
00:00 – Introduction
01:33 – An “absolutely bonkers year”
03:40 – Operating virtually and in a reactive capacity
07:20 – Working alongside government groups (SPI-M and SAGE)
09:15 – The “common room dynamic” of INI
09:40 – … and playing Pandemic (the board game)
10:40 – A new kind of research, with surprises from “age-mixing” data
16:38 – All about RAMP (“Rapid Assistance in Modelling The Pandemic”)
18:40 – Receiving the Rosalind Franklin award: “a beam of light in some difficult months”
21:38 – Working with the Millennium Maths Project to encourage girls and women in mathematics
29:00 – “I remember being able to pursue what I thought was interesting, and nobody steered me away”
30:40 – Recommendations and Twitter experiences (featuring the Reverend Richard Coles)
33:35 – … and, finally, how to win at Pandemic
Professor Julia Gog discusses her roles within the UK’s “Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies” and the INI programme “Infectious Dynamics of Pandemics”, being awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award, and trying to beat the board game “Pandemic”
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