The 7th Annual Pi Mu Epsilon Lecture was given on Friday, November 1, 2013 by Professor Suzanne Lenhart from University of Tennessee
Publicity Poster.
The power of optimal control: from confining rabies to improving CPR
Abstract
Optimal control techniques provide a way to optimally manage the dynamics of a model to achieve a goal. This talk will present optimal control of two models which are discrete in time. The first example involves difference equations that model cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The goal is to design external chest and abdomen pressure patterns to improve the blood flow in the heart in standard CPR procedure. The second example is an epidemic model for rabies in raccoons on a spatial grid. The goal is to find the optimal distribution pattern for vaccine baits to slow the spread of the disease.
About the Speaker
Suzanne Lenhart is a Chancellor Professor at the University of Tennessee and the Associate Director of Education and Outreach at National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis. For many years Dr. Lenhart was a part-time researcher at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Besides research in optimal control, disease models, invasive species, and natural resources, Suzanne is interested in outreach and diversity in education and undergraduate research. She directed Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) programs for over 20 years, and for 12 years worked with a high school math club.
Dr. Lenhart is a former president of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM). She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and the American Mathematical Society (AMS).
The Pi Mu Epsilon lecture series is made possible through the support of the UNL Mathematics Department, the Nebraska Alpha Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon and the Nebraska Math Scholars program.