Distressing Math Collective with Professor Olivia Chu

Join the Distressing Math Collective for a talk titled "Evolutionary Dynamics in Group Structured Populations" by Bryn Mawr College Professor Olivia Chu. No prior knowledge is required! Snacks will be served starting at 6:30 p.m. in the Math Lounge. The evolution of cooperation has been studied in many systems, from bacterial communities to human populations. It's well known that population structure, or who interacts with whom, is crucial to a system’s dynamics. In human populations, group memberships are fundamental – in many cases, the people we encounter and the interactions we have are influenced by the groups that we're a part of. In this talk, I will present a general framework that can be used to study the dynamics that arise in group-structured populations. We will explore when we can observe the evolution of cooperation and the mechanisms that lead to these favorable outcomes. These models are very flexible and versatile and provide an analytical framework in which behavior in realistic population structures can be studied.