Jane White

I am an applied mathematician developing and analysing mathematical models to address problems arising in the healthcare arena. Specifically, my current research focusses in two areas: control of infectious diseases; and drug monitoring and delivery particularly across the skin barrier. 

The role of mathematical modelling to explore infectious disease control is well-established and involves a wide range of modelling approaches. My particular interest is to explore the potential for classic techniques such as optimal control and feedback control to contribute to the literature in this field. My goal is to find an approach to control that might be easily translated into practice and that might result in clearly defined outcomes in terms of the levels of infection post control intervention. Most of my work is based on underlying deterministic infectious disease processes although I have also undertaken some work that is based upon stochastic and network models. 

My work on drug monitoring and delivery focuses on drugs that are delivered or monitored across the skin.  The challenge here is to work out how the drug molecules might partition and move through the skin barrier that is highly heterogeneous in nature. Here I work with systems of reaction diffusion advection equations for which parameter estimates can be made using the empirical studies of my collaborators working in the Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology. The resulting mechanistic models diverge from classical pharmacokinetic (PK) models of drug delivery but are of increasing interest to colleagues working in the Pharmaceutical industries who are aware of the limitations of a purely PK approach. Linked to this activity, I am a member of the UK network for Quantitative Systems Pharmacology.

I am the founding director of MASH (http://www.bath.ac.uk/study/mash), the institutional mathematics resources centre that offers a wide range of activities to support the  mathematical and statistical needs of all members of the university. 

I am a member of the departmental executive in my role as Director of Learning & Teaching, and I am a member of Senate. My interest in teaching and learning extends beyond the University of Bath and I am currently a member of the London Mathematical Society Education Committee. 

Mechanistic mathematical models for drug delivery and monitoring.

Control of infectious diseases.