A winter morning view from Clingmans Dome in
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
BENJAMIN LEVY
Visiting Associate Professor of Mathematics
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, ME
Associate Professor of Mathematics (sabbatical AY 23/24)
Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg, MA
Research Scientist
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Woods Hole, MA.
My research is in biological modeling with an emphasis on population modeling, infectious disease modeling, and distribution modeling.
RECENT & UPCOMING PRESENTATIONS
The Christie Lecture at the MAA Northeast Section Fall Meeting
"Incorporating Geospatial Data into Mathematical Models: Examples, Ideas, and Pictures!"
Keene, NH
November 18, 2022
National Stock Assessment Workshop (NSAW)
"Is Climate Change Biasing Survey Abundance Indices? A Simulation Starting Point"
Providence, RI
May, 2023
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) Annual Science Conference
"How might climate change affect indices of abundance?"
Bilbao, Spain
September, 2023
RECENT RESEARCH
Simulating Habitat Preferences and Stock Assessment of Atlantic Fish Under the Pressures of Climate Change
Fish stocks throughout the Northeast United States continental shelf are managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Due to a combination of climate change and shifts in circulation, the Northeast United States continental shelf has experienced rapid warming in recent decades, resulting in a shift in spatial distributions of many species. I currently serve as a Research Scientist with NOAA’s NEFSC to model the impact of climate change on the spatial preferences of fish stocks in our region and assess the ability of NOAA's bottom trawl survey to monitor population trends under these changing conditions.
A Vaccination Model for COVID-19 in South Africa
In the absence of a vaccine, governments mandated protocols such as social distancing, lockdowns, and other related policies to mitigate the spread of the disease. Our Masamu Advanced Study Institute (MASI) subgroup modeled the ongoing outbreak with a focus on how government policies and widely available vaccines can impact infection dynamics. Using our estimated parameters and resulting simulations in combination with the timing of government policies, we are able to assess the impact of certain non-vaccine intervention strategies.
