Complex Systems Modelling Group Members

	Collaborators - View the list of CSMG collaborators. Past Members - View the profiles of past CSMG members.
	Andrew Adams Mr. Adams joined CSMG as a volunteer researcher in May 2010 working primarily with the group on HIV Incidence modeling. Mr. Adams started a MSc. in Applied Mathematics in the Fall of 2011 at SFU. He has previously completed a BCOM at McGill University, as well as studying math at UBC with a focus on probability, optimization, and statistics. He also worked on research and analysis of MOS quality of life statistics while at the Montreal Chest Institute. Email: aeadams@sfu.ca
	Pam Borghardt Ms. Borghardt is the CSMG’s Managing Director. As a member of the CSMG Management Committee, she provides financial and administrative direction. Pam is also the Managing Director of the Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences (IRMACS) Centre. Email: pam@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Peter Borwein Dr. Borwein holds a Burnaby Mountain Chair in Mathematics at SFU and is the IRMACS Management Committee and the Founding Director of the IRMACS Centre. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of British Columbia and is the author of nine books and over 150 research articles. His research interests span mathematical modelling, computational number theory, classical analysis, and symbolic computation. An award-winning mathematician, he has led three major initiatives within national mathematics groups, including MITACS, PIMS and the IRMACS Centre. He has been involved in a number of large-scale computational number theory and combinatorial problems. In 2004, Dr. Borwein founded the highly successful CFI-funded IRMACS Centre based on a unique model for interdisciplinary research that builds on a core cluster of mathematical and computational expertise to forge multidisciplinary collaborations within the sciences. Email: pborwein@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Felix Breden Dr. Felix Breden is the Executive Director for the IRMACS Centre. He is also chair of the IRMACS Management Committee and the Executive Director of the Complex Systems Modelling Group (CSMG). Dr. Breden is a population geneticist interested in behaviour, sexual selection, guppies and human immunogenetics. He has worked on toads, beetles, cornborers, and mathematical models of the evolution of social behaviour. He now concentrates on opsin evolution and speciation in guppies, and how variability in human immunoglobulin genes can affect susceptibility to autoimmune and infectious diseases, and response to vaccines. Email: felix@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Colin Exley Mr. Exley completed his B.Sc. in Applied Mathematics, and is currently working on his M.Sc. in Mathematics at SFU. His research interests include mathematical modelling for various aspects in criminology. Email: cde4@sfu.ca
	Christopher Giles Dr. Giles received his Ph.D. in Criminology at Simon Fraser University in 2011. The focus of his doctoral research is on the criminal careers of high frequency offenders in Vancouver with an emphasis on offending frequency (lambda) and specialization metrics over the life course. Dr. Giles has worked as a research associate for CSMG since 2007. He brings to the group a diverse research background in criminology and criminal justice, having received both his B.A. and M.A. in Criminology from the University of Manitoba and Simon Fraser University, respectively. In collaboration with the Ministry of Justice in British Columbia, he is currently working with CSMG on developing mathematical models of the provincial justice system as well as its major sub-systems for the Criminal Justice System project. While not working at the CSMG, Dr. Giles is engaged in projects on domestic violence at the policing and court levels and problem-oriented courts systems, specifically the Downtown Community Court in Vancouver, British Columbia. Email: cmgiles@sfu.ca
	Sarah Kok Miss Kok completed her B.Sc. in Mathematics, and is currently working on her M.Sc. in Mathematics at SFU. Sarah’s current research focuses on using mathematical models to predict what impact serosorting may have on an HIV epidemic. She is also a member of IMPACT-HIV, a collaboration of HIV researchers of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV and AIDS and mathematicians of the Complex Systems Modeling Group. Email: ask2@sfu.ca
	Ali Nadaf Mr. Nadaf joined CSMG in 2010 as a research assistant from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) where he worked in information and communication technologies. Mr. Nadaf completed both his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering at the Iran University of Science and Technology and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at SFU. His current research focuses on modelling social welfare issues: designing and modeling Afghanistan’s drug trafficking routes, analyzing HIV transmission and the sexual behavior of people who engage in high-risk behavior, and using population distribution to design a dynamic map of suitable locations for establishing treatment centers. Email: anadaf@sfu.ca
	Bojan Ramadanovic Dr. Ramadanovic received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of British Columbia in 2008, studying duality between string theories and non-abelian gauge theories. As a member of the CSMG, he is working on the models representing the various parts of the criminal justice system of British Columbia. He is also working with CSMG and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS in investigating the spread of HIV in the context of the behavioural and social properties of at-risk populations. He is also very interested in combining behavioral models, game theory, and classical economics to explain the apparent deviations from the “efficient market” hypothesis. His other academic interests include operational research in health sciences. As an avid player of strategy board games, he takes his interest in modeling, optimization and economic systems beyond a purely scholarly level. Email: bramadan@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Alexander (Sandy) Rutherford Dr. Rutherford is the Scientific Director for the CSMG. Prior to joining the CSMG, he was the Scientific Executive Officer at the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS). Dr. Rutherford holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Physics from the University of British Columbia and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, and the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy. His research spans a wide range of fields within the mathematical sciences. In mathematical physics, his main focus has been on quantum-mechanical many-body problems. In health research, he worked on the design and evaluation of protocols for electronic health records and applications of queuing theory to surgical waitlists and the acute care system. He has also worked on application of dynamical systems methods to health care modelling, criminal justice system modelling, and epidemiology. Email: sandyr@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Alexa van der Waall Dr. van der Waall has been a project manager for CSMG since 2008, where she has been involved in various successful projects. She holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. Her research background includes the fields of differential Galois theory, number theory, and computer algebra. In addition to having worked on a broad variety of research projects at SFU, Dr. van der Waall also develops and implements specialized software code for the computer algebra system MAGMA at the University of Sydney, Australia on an ongoing basis. Since 2009, she has led the CSMG’s multi-year criminology justice systems modeling project, for which she also develops system dynamics models and provide computational expertise. She is a contributing author to CSMG’s book Modelling in HealthCare (published by the AMS) and the book Artificial Crime Analysis Systems: Using Computer Simulations and Geographic Information Systems. Email: avanderw@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Krisztina Vásárhelyi Dr. Vásárhelyi currently coordinates the IMPACT-HIV Project, a collaboration between CSMG and the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS that applies mathematical modelling to HIV epidemiology. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and conducted post-doctoral studies with the Population Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology Group at University of Ferrara in Italy. She has been a member of CSMG since 2005, serving as the Coordinator for several CSMG projects in HIV epidemiology and obesity. In 2008, Dr. Vasarhelyi co-founded IMPACT-HIV in conjunction with Dr. Robert Hogg from SFU’s Faculty of Health Sciences. Her current research focuses on mathematical modelling of behavioural and biomedical interventions to control the spread of HIV, the social epidemiology of HIV, and phylogenetic approaches to understanding HIV transmission networks. She has also worked as a consultant on several public health projects, including the Pandemic Influenza Project at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. Email: kvasarhelyi@irmacs.sfu.ca
	Les Vertesi Dr. Vertesi is the Senior Health Systems Consultant to the CSMG. Dr. Vertesi is an emergency physician with over 30 years of experience in major trauma referral hospitals, and is well known for founding the Advanced Life Support Paramedic Ambulance Program of the British Columbia Ambulance Service (1975 to 1985). He became the first recipient of the Justice Institute of British Columbia's Joseph Cohen Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Safety (1999). Dr. Vertesi obtained his MD from the University of Toronto and a specialty certificate in Emergency Medicine from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1985. He received an M.Sc. in Health Sciences and Clinical Epidemiology from the University of British Columbia, specializing in computer modelling and simulation. In 2002, he served on the advisory panel for Senator Kirby's report on Canadian health care. In December 2003, he was named British Columbia's representative member on the Health Council of Canada and continues in that role. In addition to his position at IRMACS, he is the Medical Director and Interim CEO of BC’s new Health Services Purchasing Organization, and still finds time to practice clinical medicine on a part-time basis in the ER at the Royal Columbian Hospital. Email: les_vertesi@sfu.ca
	Yanchao Wang Dr. Wang is currently working on model simulations and data analysis for the CSMG’s Criminal Justice Systems Project. She holds both an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Computing Science from Georgia State University in USA. Her research interests include bioinformatics, data analysis, object-oriented database, relational database, web services, and data modelling. Dr. Wang also worked on mathematical modelling and data analysis for the CSMG’s Acute Capacity and Surgical Waitlist projects and has contributed research on the movement of the homeless in the Tri-City Area. Email: ywang@irmacs.sfu.ca