Courtney Davis 
                                                                                                      
Now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at:

University of Maryland, College Park
Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling
cdavis (at) cscamm.umd.edu
(301) 405-0668
www.cscamm.umd.edu/cdavis
                                                 


Research Focus: Mathematical Immunology

I mathematically model immune memory regulation and memory repertoire shifts resulting from memory T-cell attrition.  More specifically, I mathematically examine how the memory CD8+ T-cell repertoire changes due to infections.  Following normal infections, the creation of new memory T-cells results in increased competition for survival signals, which in turn may lead to passive attrition of existing memory.  Furthermore, some viral infections cause massive bystander attrition of memory CD8+ T-cells early in infection; this attrition is then followed by homeostatic proliferation of surviving memory cells, along with some naive cells, to refill the memory compartment.  My work looks at how these attrition and proliferation events alter the composition of lineages within the memory CD8+ T-cell repertoire and hence affect the ability of the memory compartment to respond to particular infections should they reoccur.  I utilize a variety of applied mathematical techniques, ranging from deterministic methods to probabilistic and stochastic approaches, as required by the particular biological problems.


Teaching:
2009-2010:     Independent Study Mentor
Fall 2009:       Graduate Math Biology (Dr. Keener's class) - Homework file
2008-2009:     Math Biology REU  -  Results Summary
Spring 2008:  Journal Club
Fall 2007:       Journal Club
Spring 2007:  Math 1180 - Calculus for Biologists II
Fall 2006:       Math 1170 - Calculus for Biologists I
Spring 2006:  Math 1100 - Business Calculus
Fall 2005:       Math 1030 - Quantitative Reasoning

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