The renowned researcher in Mathematical Epidemiology and academician of the School of Public Health, Georgia State University (GSU), Atlanta, United States, Gerardo Chowell, will hold two research stays at Universidad de Concepción. The visits of the expert, which will take place in 2018 and 2019, will be funded by International Collaboration Program (PCI) of National Commission of Scientific and Technological Research, Conicyt, within the context of the National Competition of Attraction of Advanced Human Capital of the Foreigner, Short Term Modality (MEC),.

Professor Chowell already visited our university in July 2016 when, together with other outstanding researchers from national and foreign universities, he participated in the Second CI²MA Workshop: Mathematical Models in Epidemiology, organized by the researcher and subdirector of the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering, CI²MA, Raimund Bürger. On that occasion, the assembled scientists presented some of the results of their most recent studies and discussed different interdisciplinary research initiatives related to the epidemiological study of diseases such as hanta, HIV and influenza A (H1N1), among others.

Professor Chowell is a permanent collaborator, both of Professor Bürger and of the external associate CI²MA researcher Luis Miguel Villada, as well as co-director of the research thesis of Elvis Gavilán, student of the Doctorate Programe in Applied Sciences with a minor in Mathematical Engineering, directed by Bürger, who explains that “the collaboration with Dr. Chowell in ​​Mathematical Epidemiology area, which is also interesting for CI²MA researchers, Luis Mauricio Castro and Mauricio Sepúlveda, is reinforced by the recent award of the MEC project 80170119 'Mathematical Epidemiology: Theory, Numerical Methods, Applications, and Public Health' ". These recently obtained funds covers two stays at CI²MA two-month long each, in addition to travel tickets for undergraduate and postgraduate students who wish to collaborate with him and perform an internship at the GSU. “The first of the stays by Dr. Chowell will be held in June and July 2018. Scheduled activities include, among others, a course that he will teach to postgraduate and advanced undergraduate students and, in addition, an interdisciplinary workshop about Mathematical Epidemiology will be organized”, Bürger explains.

Chowell obtained his Doctorate from Cornell University (United States, 2005) after having achieved his professional degree at Universidad de Colima (Mexico, 2001). Before joining GSU, he was an academician at Arizona State University and is currently member of editorial boards of prestigious journals in his research area such as BMC Medicine, BMC Infectious Diseases, Epidemics, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering and PLoS ONE, among other publications. In addition, he has been interviewed and quoted in outreach news addressed to issues related to the spread of infections, including prestigious international media such as Time magazine, Washington Post, National Geographic and El País, among many others.