We study populations, and theories relevant to them. Populations exhibit phenomena that are difficult to deduce from the characteristics of an isolated member. For example, the prevalence of a disease is indirectly connected to the course of disease in an individual; aging in a population differs in causes and consequences from aging in an individual. To develop concepts helpful for understanding populations, we study concrete problems in demography, epidemiology, ecology, and population genetics.

Research Projects:

DEMOGRAPHY

How Many People Can the Earth Support?
Aging, Morbidity & Mortality in Industrialized Societies
Spatial Distribution of the Human Population
Population Dynamics (Horiuchi, Cohen)

EPIDEMIOLOGY

Chagas Disease in Northwest Argentina (Cohen, Gürtler)

ECOLOGY

Food Webs in Rice Paddies in the Philippines
Body Sizes in Predatory and Parasitic Food Webs (Cohen, Jonsson, Chen)
Spectral Properties of Chaotic Population Models (Cohen, Chen)

MATHEMATICAL STUDIES

Entropy Inequalities in Information Theory
Paradoxes of Congested Networks
Nonassociative Algebras: Paper, Scissors, Stone (Itoh)