UMaine Mathematics Professor Receives $400,000 National Science Foundation Grant
Contact: David Hiebeler at (207) 581-3924; Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
ORONO, Maine — David Hiebeler, an assistant professor in the University of Maine Department of Mathematics and Statistics, has received the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious honor for promising young scholar-researchers: the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) grant.
The $400,000 award, which Hiebeler will receive over five years, recognizes faculty who “most effectively integrate research and education within the context of the mission of their organization,” according to the NSF. This marks the first such award for a professor in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and is one of five active CAREER grants on campus.
Hiebeler, whose research centers on mathematical population ecology and epidemiology, will study “Dynamics of Hierarchical Household-Structured Epidemiological Models.” Real-world applications for the research include understanding more effective pesticide application in Maine blueberry fields, studying how infectious diseases spread and predicting — and perhaps combating — the worldwide spread of a computer worm.
“The importance of the work is that it may suggest new strategies for monitoring populations for outbreaks of infectious diseases, invasive species, or malicious software to enable earlier detection,” Hiebeler says.
Hiebeler will work with Frank Drummond, a professor of insect ecology and insect pest management at UMaine, in the hope of using the models to help control maggot flies in Maine’s commercial blueberry fields. A similar collaboration with entomologists at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, will address planthoppers, a crop pest in rice fields in Asia.
Undergraduate research training has been a significant part of Hiebeler’s work since he arrived at UMaine in 2002, and students will play an important role in his NSF work as well. Several years ago, he established the SPEED (Spatial Population Ecological and Epidemiological Dynamics) Lab, where students build computational and mathematical models of populations. These models describe the behavior of populations over time under a variety of simulated environmental conditions. Starting this fall, local high school students will begin training with Hiebeler and his undergraduate students, and later become directly involved in SPEED Lab research projects.
“I’m thrilled that the National Science Foundation is providing support to help build my research program and grow my research group,” Hiebeler says. “This will create opportunities for many more students to become involved in research in mathematical biology, including graduate students, undergraduates and high school students. In recent years I’ve included many undergraduates in my research efforts, have already co-authored a paper with one and expect this to continue.”
For more information about the SPEED Lab, visit http://www.math.umaine.edu/faculty/hiebeler/speedlab.
For more information about the NSF’s CAREER grant program, visit www.NSF.gov.