The Roles and Consequences of Randomness in Biological Systems

Speaker: Linda Petzold, PhD
Mehrabian Distinguished Professor 
Mechanical Engineering & Computer Science\
University of California Santa Barbara

Abstract: 

Stochasticity (randomness) is ubiquitous in biological systems.  In the first part of this talk, we will explore some of the ways in which stochasticity arises and is used to advantage by biological systems, at a wide range of scales.  We will introduce computational tools to enable modeling of stochastic processes in biological systems.  In the second part, we will introduce an approach to infer a model, given the data, via a type of neural network called Neural ODEs.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Linda Petzold is currently Distinguished Mehrabian Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science at the University of California Santa Barbara.  She is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering and the US National Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of ACM, ASME, SIAM, AIMBE and AAAS.   She was named the UCSB Faculty Research Lecturer for 2011, was awarded the SIAM/ACM Prize for Computational Science and Engineering in 2013, received an Honorary Doctorate from Uppsala University in 2015, was awarded the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service in 2016, and was awarded the IEEE Sydney Fernbach Prize in 2018.   Her current research focuses on modeling, simulation and data analytics of multiscale systems in biology, materials and medicine.

Host: Khuloud Jaqaman, PhD