The seminar "Basic reproduction number with application to childhood infections" will be held on November 21, at 6:10 p.m., at the “Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto” (ISEP).

The event will take place in room H422 at ISEP, and will have as invited lecturer Dr. Ganna Rozhnova, Associate Professor in Infectious Disease Modeling at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. The event will be hybrid. The admission to the event is free, but the number of places is subject to the capacity of the room.

“Basic reproduction number with application to childhood infections”

Abstract

In this seminar I will discuss how we can model transmission of childhood infections such as measles or rubella. I will further introduce one of the most important concepts in infectious disease modeling: the basic reproduction number.

Prerequisites for this seminar: mathematics at the secondary school level.

Bio

Dr Ganna Rozhnova is an Associate Professor in Infectious Disease Modeling at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. In addition, she holds an appointment as an Invited Associated Professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon and a principal investigator at the BioISI—Biosystems & Integrative Sciences Institute in Lisbon, Portugal. Her research centers on the application of infectious disease modeling to answer questions and support evidence-based policymaking in public health. She is interested in understanding emergence, evolution and spatio-temporal dynamics of infectious diseases on different scales (e.g., host, hospital/school or population) and evaluating the impact of interventions on disease transmission. Her most recent research aims to address the prospects of HIV elimination, the impact of promising HIV cure strategies on HIV transmission, and (post-)pandemic dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. Other applications include influenza, CMV and childhood infections. Dr Rozhnova is a recipient of highly competitive awards (PhD and postdoctoral fellowships from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, Award “Stimulus for Research” from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation), institutional excellence programs (Research Career Development Program) and grants (list below). She held official appointments as na invited visiting scientist at the University of California (Santa Barbara, USA), the Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge, UK), the Gladstone Institute of Immunology and Virology (San Francisco, USA), and the MRC Biostatistics Unit (Cambridge, UK). The main funders of her current research are Aidsfonds, FCT, ZonMw and European Commission.

The "Seminars in Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases" are developed as part of the Epidemiology curricular unit of ISEP's Master's in Biomedical Engineering.

For more information, send an e-mail to: cap@isep.ipp.pt .