UTM student Valerie Pan presents mathematical epidemiology project at Queen’s Mathematics Summer School
University of Toronto Mississauga undergraduate student Valerie Pan participated in the 2026 Queen’s Mathematics Summer School, held June 22–26 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. QMSS is open to undergraduate and master’s students interested in learning cutting-edge mathematics delivered by faculty from the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Queen’s University. The week-long program covers several intensive courses, each comprising multiple hours of lectures. This year's program featured courses in Mathematical Phylodynamics, Root Systems and their Applications, and Groups and Dynamics.
During the summer school’s poster session, Valerie presented An Introduction to Mathematical Epidemiology and the Compartmental Modelling of Infectious Disease Dynamics: An Interdisciplinary Joint-University Collaboration. Her poster highlighted her contributions to the development of an open-source, interactive e-textbook designed to make mathematical epidemiology accessible to students from a wide range of academic backgrounds.
The e-textbook combines clear explanations with applied examples, visualizations and interactive R Shiny dashboards. It introduces both foundational and advanced compartmental disease models, including the SI, SIR, SEIR, SAIR, SVIR and SIQR models. The e-textbook is freely available online at:
https://nishanmudalige.github.io/UTM_FSU_Biostats/
This work was completed through Valerie’s participation in STA478H5: Statistics Research Project, completed under the supervision of Dr. Nishan Mudalige. Through the course, she contributed to the development of an open-source, interactive e-textbook in collaboration with Dr. Bryce Morsky and Shohan Ghatak of Florida State University and Nishi Bhanderi of the Maclay School in Florida. By making the e-book freely available online, the team aims to broaden access to biomathematics and biostatistics education while providing a resource that can support classroom learning, independent study and future student research.
Valerie was awarded funding by the Queen’s Mathematics Summer School to support her travel and accommodations for the 2026 program.
Congratulations!
