I am a Fulbright Scholar and Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Mathematics in Mason Porter’s group at UCLA. My postdoctoral position at UCLA is generously supported by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation’s prestigious mathematics grant, awarded to promote cutting-edge research in mathematics. I hold a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Uppsala University within the Centre for Interdisciplinary Mathematics in Sweden, where I was advised by David Sumpter.
My research studies how intelligence emerges in living systems. I develop mathematical models to understand how oscillations, feedback, and adaptive structure give rise to learning, coordination, and distributed information processing across biological scales. Alongside technical modelling, I also work on foundational questions about what modelling can explain in complex biological systems and how modelling practice shapes scientific understanding.
Latest research results and news
March 5, 2026, Invited talk: I gave a talk at the Mathematics for Complex Biological Systems at UCSD.
March 4, 2026, Panel discussion: I participated as a panelist at the Bites and Breakthroughs event organized by the Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Association (UIRA) at UCLA, where I spoke with undergraduate students about research paths, interdisciplinary work, and careers in academia.
March 1, 2026, Minisymposium organisation: Together with Sara Hamis (Uppsala University), I am organising the minisymposium Meta-Perspectives on Mathematical Biology at the European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology (ECMTB 2026). The session explores how mathematical biology shapes, and is shaped by, policy-making, education, scientific publishing, and inclusive science communication.
February 27, 2026, Rising Stars selection: I am honoured and excited to have been selected as a Rising Star in Computational and Data Sciences and will participate in the 2026 Rising Stars in Computational and Data Sciences Workshop at the Santa Fe Institute on April 7–8.
February 23, 2026, Workshop presentation: I presented our recent paper on the development of mathematical oncology as a field at the Mathematics of Cancer: Open Mathematical Problems workshop at the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, analysing its structure, collaborations, and thematic evolution over the past 60 years.
February 17, 2026, Conference presentation: I am very excited to be presenting at NetSciX in Auckland. I will be speaking about ongoing work on modelling slime moulds and brain organoids.
November 4, 2025, New published paper: Our paper A bibliometric study on mathematical oncology: interdisciplinarity, internationality, collaboration and trending topics is now published in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology
June 26, 2025, New preprint out: Our preprint A bibliometric study on mathematical oncology: interdisciplinarity, internationality, collaboration and trending topics is up on arXiv! This is joint work with Sara Hamis, Kira Pugh, and Stanislav Stratiev.
May 15, 2025, Conference presentation: I am presenting at the SIAM Dynamical Systems Conference in Denver!
May 5, 2025, New preprint out: Our preprint Cognition without neurons: modelling anticipation in a basal reservoir computer is up on arXiv! This is joint work with Polyphony Bruna.
April 7, 2025, Visit to Cornell University and Syracuse University: I will be visiting Cornell University and Syracuse University to give research talks and meet with collaborators.
March 15, 2025, Visit to UCSF and UC Merced: I will be visiting and giving talks at the Cell Geometry Lab at UCSF and the Department of Cognitive and Information Sciences at UC Merced!
January 22, 2025, Paper published: Our paper A minimal model of cognition based on oscillatory and current-based reinforcement processes is now published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
January 13–17, 2025, Workshop Attendance: I am excited to attend the Women in Mathematical Computational Biology workshop at The Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics, Brown University.
January 6-10, 2025, Poster presentation: I will be presenting the poster “Oscillations and Adaptation: Mathematical Models of Non-Neural Cognition” at the Biological Systems that Learn workshop hosted by the NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology in Chicago.
November 5, 2024, Paper accepted: Our paper “A minimal model of cognition based on oscillatory and current-based reinforcement processes” has been accepted to Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
September 9, 2024, IPAM Research Fellow: I am very excited to begin as a Research Fellow in the Mathematics of Intelligences Program hosted by the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at UCLA this semester.
June 14, 2024, Invited seminar: I will give an online seminar at the Quantum@SUN Seminar Series at Stellenbosch University on mathematical models of basal cognition.
May 20, 2024, Invited seminar: I will give a seminar at the Integrated Science Lab at Umeå University on Mathematical models of basal cognition.
May 13, 2024, Invited talk: I am an invited speaker at the Brainnet+ 2024 and will give a talk entitled “Beyond Neurons: Modelling Basal Cognition in Slime Moulds”.
May 3, 2024, KAW Mathematics Postdoctoral Grant Awarded: I have been awarded the highly prestigous Knut and Alice Wallenberg Mathematics Postdoctoral Grant to do a postdoc with Professor Mason Porter at UCLA.
April 22, 2024, Research Visit: I am visiting Dr. Audrey Dussutour’s lab at the Research Center for Animal Cognition at CNRS, Toulouse this week.
April 12, 2024, PhD in Applied Mathematics: I have officially earned my PhD in Applied Mathematics! On the 12th of April, I successfully defended my PhD thesis “The Art of Modelling Oscillations and Feedback Across Biological Scales”. The opponent was Professor Helen Byrne, from the University of Oxford.
April 4, 2024, Seminar: I will give a seminar online at the Collective Behaviour seminar series.
February 6, 2024, New preprint: Our paper “A minimal model of cognition based on oscillatory and reinforcement processes” is now available. This is joint work with Yu Tian and David Sumpter.
December 20, 2023, Grant award: I have been honored with the O.Andrén Grant, presented to PhD students at Uppsala University for their intelligence, dedication to work, and good conduct, ensuring the surest prospects for future contributions to science.
December 14, 2023, Poster presentation: I presented the poster “The lost art of mathematical modelling – How should we do mathematical modelling in the machine learning era?” at the AI4Research Annual Workshop at Uppsala University, Sweden.
October 12, 2023, Paper published: Our paper Finding analytical approximations for discrete, stochastic, individual-based models of ecology is now published in Mathematical Biosciences.
September 27, 2023, Contributed talk accepted: I got a contributed talk accepted at the workshop Data-driven mechanistic mathematical modelling for life-science applications at Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden, October 23-24, 2023.
September 24, 2023, Paper accepted: Our paper “Finding analytical approximations for discrete, stochastic, individual-based models of ecology” has been accepted to Mathematical Biosciences.
July 19, 2023, Paper published: Our paper Using neuronal models to capture burst and glide motion and leadership in fish is now published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
June 28, 2023, Grant Winner: I was selected to win a £1200 grant from G-Research, to partially fund a research visit to Professor Mason A. Porter at University of California, Los Angeles
June 28, 2023, Paper accepted: Our paper “Using neuronal models to capture burst and glide motion and leadership in fish” has been accepted to Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
June 27, 2023, Paper published: Our paper The lost art of mathematical modelling is now published in Mathematical Biosciences.
April 12, 2023, Travel Grant: I have received the Knut and Alice Wallenberg travel grant from the Swedish Mathematical Society. The grant will partially fund my participation in the Santa Fe Institute Symposium Collective Intelligence.
March 29, 2023, Presentation accepted: I got a poster presentation accepted at the Santa Fe Institute Symposium Collective Intelligence June 19-23, 2023.
March 21, 2023, Contributed talk accepted: I got a contributed talk accepted at the workshop Collective Behaviour at Isaac Newton Institute, Cambridge, UK, August 7-11, 2023.
March 13, 2023, Travel Grant: I have received Liljewalchs travel grant. The grant will partially fund my participation in the Santa Fe Institute Symposium Collective Intelligence.