Event details
- When: Tuesday, October 13, 2026 at 1:00 PM
- Where: MSB 318: Mathematical Sciences Building, Room 318
- Category: Speaker/Lecture/Seminar
- Presented by: Erika Lin
The Mathematical Biology Seminar will feature Jason Harmon of the UCF School of Data, Mathematical, and Statistical Sciences presenting on impacts of varying dispersal in metapopulation models.
His abstract explains that multipatch models capture population and disease dynamics across heterogeneous environments, where long‑term persistence depends heavily on network topology and dispersal connectivity. Analytically assessing persistence requires evaluating the spectral abscissa of the system’s Jacobian matrix at a boundary equilibrium. While this evaluation is highly complex for general networks, fast dispersal regimes allow the spectral abscissa to be expanded via perturbation using the group inverse of the underlying graph’s Laplacian matrix. The talk presents a framework employing Sherman–Morrison‑type formulas for group invertible matrices to analyze changes in spectral abscissa due to alterations in dispersal between two patches, demonstrating how localized variations in dispersal intensity reshape overall population growth rate and persistence thresholds.
Harmon is a fourth‑year graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics at the University of Central Florida’s School of Data, Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. His research focuses on mathematical epidemiology, dynamical systems, and generalized inverses. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics at the same university and has presented his work at MCA 2025 and SIAM 2026.
Event listing published by Events at UCF:
https://events.ucf.edu/event/4223882/mathematical-biology-seminar-by-jason-harmon-ucf/
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