Zhilan Julie Feng (born 1959) is a Chinese-American applied mathematician whose research topics include mathematical biology, population dynamics, and

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...

. She is a professor of mathematics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mone ...

, and a program director in the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...

Education and career

Feng studied mathematics at Jilin University in China, earning a bachelor's degree in 1982 and a master's degree in 1985. She came to Arizona State University for graduate study, completing her Ph.D. in 1994. Her dissertation, ''A Mathematical Model for the Dynamics of Childhood Diseases Under the Impact of Isolation'', was supervised by Horst R. Thieme. After her postdoctoral study at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, she joined Purdue University as an assistant professor in 1996. She was promoted to full professor in 2005, and became a program director at the National Science Foundation in 2019.

Recognition

Feng was named a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

, in the 2022 class of fellows, "for contributions to applied mathematics, particularly in biology, ecology, and epidemiology".

Books

Feng's books include: *''Disease Evolution: Models, Concepts, and Data Analyses'' (American Mathematical Society, 2006, edited with Ulf Dieckmann and Simon A. Levin) *''Applications of Epidemiological Models to Public Health Policymaking: The role of heterogeneity in model predictions'' (World Scientific, 2014) *''Mathematical Models of Plant-Herbivore Interactions'' (Chapman & Hall / CRC, 2018, with Donald DeAngelis) *''Mathematical Models in Epidemiology'' (Springer, 2019, with Fred Brauer and Carlos Castillo-Chavez)

References

External links

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