People

Dr. Rebecca Tyson

Rebecca Tyson is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan in Kelowna, BC. Her work lies mainly in the area of theoretical ecology, specifically population dynamics and dispersal of populations in variable landscapes. She has worked on questions related to predator-prey cycles, mountain pine beetle dispersal, pollination services of honeybees, and human-bear interactions in interface communities like Whistler, BC. The models she uses include ordinary and partial differential equations, as well as individual-based computational models.

Sarah MacQueen

Sarah MacQueen is a PhD candidate in mathematics at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus in Kelowna, BC. She got involved in this project when an interest in modelling animal movement and an interest in bees collided at just the right moment. Her specialization is individual based models – in this case, simulating the movement of individual bees!

Dr. Ralph Cartar

Ralph's current research has three themes. First, the ecology of resource-tracking and the mechanisms underlying the distribution of competitors across their resources. For mobile consumers (like bumble bees) competing for stationary, renewing resources (like flowers), what patterns of distribution and abundance of foragers do we expect to see, and why? Second, the relationship between physical wear and foraging in wild bumble bees, in an effort to link foraging and life history traits in these organisms. How does foraging influence the natural degradation of wings in bumble bees, and what is the significance of wing wear to lifespan and lifetime foraging gain? Third, using the framework of spatial density dependence from theme one (above), he is interested in detecting ecological impacts (particularly habitat loss) on pollinator populations. How does habitat loss affect populations and the distribution of competitors across resources, and can we rationalize the scale of the impact using local perturbations?

Dr. Paul Galpern

Associate Professor (Environmental Design, adjunct Biological Sciences) Paul Galpern, is a landscape ecologist whose research involves six, four and two-legged animals. He is interested in pollinator conservation, agroecosystem ecology, landscape genetics and how people move in cities.

Dr. Galpern's lab has a website here.

Dr. John Braun

Dr. W. John Braun was Professor of Statistics at Western before joining UBC-O as Head of Math. He is Deputy Director of CANSSI and has supervised 40 MSc and 11 PhD students. Braun has co-authored two books and 60-plus papers on stochastic modelling motivated by scientific problems. Ecological modelling, and wildland fire uncertainty in particular, is a focus; his Dionysus adjustment to the Prometheus Fire Growth Model is under beta-test in Alberta, part of the research conducted by a national team of statisticians and wildfire scientists.

Dr. Ramon Lawrence

Database expert from the smallest sensor and embedded databases to the largest cloud and Big Data systems. Research expertise in database integration, virtualization, and performance with over 50 peer-reviewed publications and $2M in research funding. Award-winning instructor in computer programming, database development and design, and software engineering including skills such as SQL, UML, programming (Java, C++, Javascript), relational databases (MySQL, SQL Server), and Big Data systems (Apache Hadoop, Map-Reduce, MongoDB). Experienced mentor, manager, and team contributor with over 15 graduate students supervised and numerous projects managed and developers mentored.

Dr. Warren Hare

Dr. Warren Hare received his Ph.D. in Mathematical Optimization from Simon Fraser University. Following this he has been a postdoctoral fellow at IMPA - Brazil and at McMaster University before returning to SFU to become the Program Director for the MoCSSy Program. He is currently an Associate Professor at UBC, Okanagan Campus. His research focuses on Understanding and Exploiting Sub-structure in Optimization Problems.

Dr. Nourridine Siewe

Nourridine Siewe is a Postdoc fellow on the SPG project and will be developing and analyzing a mathematical PDE (spatial and dynamic) model for the population of bumblebees associated with the pollination of blueberries in farms where wildflowers are also present. He has a background designing and using mathematical models and techniques on research about infectious diseases, both at the population level and at the within-host (cellular) level. Nourridine Obtained his PhD at Howard University (2016) and was Postdoc fellow at the US National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS, 2016-2018).

Pau Capera Aragonès

Pau Capera Aragonès is a PhD candidate in mathematics at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus in Kelowna, BC. After his studies in Physics, with a specialization in non-equilibrium thermodynamics and pattern formation theory, he becomes interested in modelling animal movement and collective behaviour. He will be developing a mathematical PDE model to determine the optimal wildflower patch arrangements to maximize pollination services by bumblebees in cultivated blueberry fields.

Richard Kwafo

Richard Kwafo is a PhD student in Ecology at the University of Calgary. He has a background in Entomology and Conservation Biology. His research interests are animal movement and habitat use in space and time, Landscape ecology and Ecosystem services. Richard is interested in the spatial and temporal configuration of agroecosystems and how these can improve the pollination efficiency of bumble bees.

Riley Jackson

Riley Jackson is an undergraduate student studying Computer Science at UBC Okanagan. He has experience with parallel computing, databases, code optimization, algorithm analysis, data structures and full stack web development. During Riley’s studies he has designed and built four websites, including this one. Riley has completed several software projects such as a re-creation of the game “Space Invaders” and a program that creates mosaics from other images.

Liam Tarr

Liam Tarr is an undergraduate student studying Data Science at UBC Okanagan. He has experience with web development, but is ready to tackle any type of project that he works on. His favourite classes have been databases, data structures, and machine learning. Liam recently built a website for the Western Collegiate Softball Association.

Dr. Bruno Carturan

Bruno Carturan is a postdoc at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan in Kelowna, BC. He is a general ecologist with a focus on community ecology, population dynamics, functional diversity, ecosystem functioning and resilience. He uses diverse modelling approaches, in particular statistical and agent-based, to answer theoretical and practical research questions.

Shamus Boulianne

Shamus Boulianne is a graduate of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan with a degree in Computer Science. He is a full-stack web developer responsible for improving on the BEE-POLLINATE webtool and turning it from a demo to a fully functioning tool ready to be used by the public.