John Drake -- Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Emerging Infectious Diseases in a Globalized World [IN PERSON]
| Dates: | 20 November 2025 |
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| Times: | 14:00 - 15:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | Department of Mathematics |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | John Drake |
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Join us for this seminar by John Drake (University of Georgia) as part of the Maths in the Life Sciences seminar series (and the online North West Seminar Series in Mathematical Biology and Data Sciences in collaboration with Liverpool Universities).
Title: Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Emerging Infectious Diseases in a Globalized World
Abstract: Emerging infectious diseases are often described as an inevitable consequence of globalization, yet the empirical basis for this claim remains surprisingly thin. What, precisely, does globalization mean in the context of disease emergence, and how might its dimensions be operationalized and tested? In this seminar, I examine patterns in global outbreak data from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to identify consistent signatures of emergence and re-emergence across pathogens, regions, and transmission modes. I then outline a framework that links these empirical regularities to specific “moments” of globalization—demographic, ecological, economic, and technological—each with distinct causal pathways. By clarifying these relationships, we can move toward a more coherent, evidence-based theory of how global connectivity shapes infectious disease risk. The talk concludes by considering implications for pandemic prevention and for integrating social and ecological processes into quantitative models of emergence.
The talk will be also be streamed via Teams, please contact carl.whitfield@manchester.ac.uk or igor.chernyavsky@manchester.ac.uk for the zoom link, or sign up to the mailing list.
To subscribe to the mailing list for this event series, please send an e-mail with the phrase “subscribe math-lifesci-seminar” in the message body to listserv@listserv.manchester.ac.uk
Speaker
John Drake
Role: Regents' Professor
Organisation: Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia
Travel and Contact Information
