Math Awareness Month lecture focuses on mobility

Dirk Brockmann, associate professor, Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, will deliver the keynote lecture for Mathematics Awareness Month at 5 p.m. Friday, April 15, titled “The Mathematics of Mobility.”

The free lecture will take place in Life Sciences A-191 on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, sponsored by the School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences.

Brockmann’s research interests include the physics of complex systems, dynamics of human infections diseases, social dynamics and human transport and human mediated bioinvasion.

His human mobility network research was used on the CBS show NUMB3RS, to determine where thieves would strike next. He has used data from WheresGeorge.com, a site where users track the travels of dollar bills, to research patterns of human mobility.

He also has modeled how diseases spread throughout the country, and he and his research group created a map of large-scale community boundaries in the United States. For more information on Brockmann’s research projects, go to http://rocs.northwestern.edu.

Mathematics Awareness Month has been held each April since 1986 to increase public understanding of and appreciation for mathematics.

For more information about Mathematics Awareness Month, go to http://math.asu.edu/node/3516.