UBC Math Bio Seminar: Clinton H. Durney

Mathematical biology offers powerful tools to tackle pressing problems at the interface of health and public policy. In this talk, I will share two vignettes demonstrating how mathematical and simulation modelling can be applied to tobacco regulatory science. The first uses a Markov state transition framework to capture population-level dynamics of two tobacco products, each with a flavour option. This structure highlights the challenges of modelling high-dimensional systems, parameter inference from sparse data, and representing policy interventions as modifications to initiation, cessation, and product switching rates. The second vignette focuses on social network modelling, where adolescent tobacco use is primarily shaped by peer influence and network structure. In this setting, stochastic processes and graph-based models describe how behaviours propagate and stabilise within adolescent populations. Together, these examples illustrate how applied mathematics can bridge data and policy in public health.