As a mathematician it’s not often you get a field trip, but today’s office was a definite improvement. First day of a collaboration with colleagues @forestresearchuk.bsky.social and been wandering round trees discussing disease spread.
Alex Best
@bestieboy.bsky.social
Maths lecturer, disease modeller, EDI empowerer, amateur percussion player, very amateur baseball player.
As a former J visa holder, solidarity to all the students, postdocs and researchers suddenly finding themselves cut adrift.
chasingmicrobes@chasingmicrobes.bsky.social · last yr.It's F and J visas
Out on strike today. Didn’t make it to the @sheffielducu.bsky.social pickets as taking child to hospital (all fine) but looks like great turnouts as ever. Asking for a time-limited ruling out of compulsory redundancies really seems like a small ask, and yet here we are.
Sheffield UCU@sheffielducu.bsky.social · last yr.Our members out in force today! 👊
Fully funded PhD project (UK applicants only) "Developing strategies for the control of ergot on-farm" #planthealth #plantpathology at @niab-uk.bsky.social and @camplantsci.bsky.social www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/postgraduate... Note the short deadline. @bspp.bsky.social
V happy to announce my 1st grant in a looong time! "Integrating spatial structure & seasonality into forest disease models" (EPSRC small grant). I'll spend 12 mths modelling disease spread through forest pops, incl working with @forestresearchuk.bsky.social to specifically model Dothistroma in pines
On a related note, I wonder what the record is for papers published and still not promoted from L to SL? I suspect I'm getting close.
Alex Best@bestieboy.bsky.social · last yr.Pleased to see our paper out on modelling how host-parasite coevolution might play out if the host can itself simultaneously evolve constitutive and induced defences. This project came out of a side conversation during my Fulbright scholarship (y'know, back when those weren't being slashed...)
Pleased to see our paper out on modelling how host-parasite coevolution might play out if the host can itself simultaneously evolve constitutive and induced defences. This project came out of a side conversation during my Fulbright scholarship (y'know, back when those weren't being slashed...)
Journal of Evolutionary Biology@jevbio.bsky.social · last yr.Host defence to parasites can be constitutive (always present) or induced (only activated after infection). How do these coevolve with each other and also with parasite growth? @bestieboy.bsky.social, Sarah Guth and Mike Boots investigated using theoretical models: academic.oup.com/jeb/advance-...
Come join us at beautiful UBC! The King Lab is recruiting a Post-doc Fellow to develop mathematical theory on infectious disease evolution and emergence, together with Ben Ashby (SFU) #zoonoses #biodiversity www.zoology.ubc.ca/kinglab/join...
Join Us! | King Lab
Are you interested in joining the King Lab? More information here!
zoology.ubc.ca
It gives me a lot of joy to see this paper. I am not an author and it does not cite me. But the lead author was part of my first ever group of undergraduate tutees. To have seen Abby all the way through her undergrad and now publishing research - especially in my broad field - is something special.
SMB - Society for Mathematical Biology@smbmathbiology.bsky.social · last yr.Here's a recent #BulletinMathBio paper by Abby Barlow, Sarah Penington, and Ben Adams on Epidemiological Dynamics in Populations Structured by Neighbourhoods and Households. link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Seeing this in the news reminded me how when Mrs B (then my girlfriend) first visited my family in Norfolk we said we’d go to Sea Palling for the day and she thought we were going to see some relative she’d not heard about called Pauline www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Holiday home owners threaten decades-old way of life for Norfolk fishers
Incomers claim use of a field for storing boats is creating too much noise and district council has sided with them
theguardian.com
Hard agree with this. I was lucky enough to just get my first research-focussed grant in 10 years. The thought that this could just be whisked away again on a whim by anonymous higher-ups is pretty awful. Full solidarity with all US colleagues going through this right now.
Dr Ellie Murray, ScD@epiellie.bsky.social · last yr.It is *so* hard to get NIH funding. I can’t imagine how awful it must feel to have finally gotten the grant that lets you do the meaningful research you want to do and then have it ripped away.
1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world. I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.
In the last 3 weeks I have had 6 review requests. What is going on?
How are we mean to keep up with all this crazy shit. Or is that the whole plan?
Joey Politano🏳️🌈@josephpolitano.bsky.social · last yr.ahhhhhhhhhh
Wow it's been an intense start to the year. Starting to level off now thankfully and will have bits of news to share shortly. First update - it was the Yorkshire Area brass band contest at the weekend and we was robbed.
Eldest's high school are proudly sending out weekly summaries of their key teaching techniques. Last week was 'cold calling' - teachers will randomly choose students to answer questions and *all* students should expect to be called on. /1
How does your email find me? Wearing an oodie and a heated blanket, that's how.
A student actually came and shook my hand at today's last lecture of the semester. Where do I put that on my cv?
I hear some of you sometimes get grants. What’s that like then?
We're doing projectile motion today and I feel the students have suffered enough through the semester that they get to see an embarrassing picture of me as a visual aid
I’ll go with with this one from my PhD in @asn-amnat.bsky.social host-parasite coevolution had largely been modelled in gene-for-gene frameworks where infection is all-or-nothing. We attempted to loosely do the same thing in eco-evo (adaptive dynamics) www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...
The Evolution of Host‐Parasite Range | The American Naturalist: Vol 176, No 1
Abstract: Understanding the coevolution of hosts and parasites is one of the key challenges for evolutionary biology. In particular, it is important to understand the processes that generate and maint...
journals.uchicago.edu
David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 2y agoScience friends 🧪🌎🦑, @altmetric.com tracks Bluesky posts now! Quote or reply to this post with a link to the paper you’re best known for or most proud of, and a brief plain-language summary of what you found and why it matters! Let’s fill Bluesky with SCIENCE!
Away from the stresses of work, the last 2 evenings the eldest and I have been kickstarting people’s Christmas celebrations as part of Maltby Miners Welfare Band with sellout concerts at Rotherham Civic. (It turns out whacking a timpani very hard is quite good for stress)
As an ex-resident of neighbouring Caister, I believe I am obliged to ask “would anyone notice?”
Join our 1-week course on Infectious Disease Mathematical Modelling at Institut Pasteur in beautiful Paris, April 7-11 2025! Deadline for applications: 7 December 2024. More information at www.pasteur.fr/en/education...
As my follower count creeps towards that of the old place, an unashamed plug for the FREE online textbook I wrote for #mathbio students. 'Introducing Mathematical Biology' is FREE, interactive, accessible and FREE. Please feel free to share with students. sheffield.pressbooks.pub/introducingm...
Trying something new: A 🧵 on a topic I find many students struggle with: "why do their 📊 look more professional than my 📊?" It's *lots* of tiny decisions that aren't the defaults in many libraries, so let's break down 1 simple graph by @jburnmurdoch.bsky.social 🔗 www.ft.com/content/73a1...
Today's university in trouble is Sheffield, as the unstoppable and existential crisis of most British Higher Education rolls on. Every day it's another victim. Wasteful and stupid. www.thestar.co.uk/education/re...
Redundancies loom at University of Sheffield over £50m funding gap
Up to £23m in cuts made primarily from support staff could be made at the University of Sheffield, with hundreds of jobs on the line.
thestar.co.uk
Great way to start the week when the first email you open is to invite applications for voluntary severance.
TFW you see an awesome @lastdivebar.bsky.social tee then realise the postage to UK is more than the tee costs to start with 😬
