DFTD or Devil Facial Tumor Disease is a transmissible cancer spreading across the Tasmanian Devil population. It is extremely deadly and has nearly wiped out the entire population. During this project, I worked closely with other undergraduates and professors to find and test the effectiveness of different vaccination strategies in combating DFTD. The first step in our research was diving into the literature, exploring what vaccination strategies had been used in the past (often for rabies outbreaks), finding which were effective, and gathering relevant data and parameters for our model.

Two vaccination strategies we focused on specifically were oral vaccination where edible vaccination medication is dropped out the back of planes and capture, vaccinate, release strategies. The next step was building our system of differential equations to reflect the real world usage of such strategies. We did this using SEIRV models along with the parameters we gathered from our previous research. We then analyzed the models to see what specific combination of strategies would be most effective in immunizing the population.

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Our team would get the chance to present our research at the Denver Joint Mathematics Meeting. Spending the week at the conference with my team was one of most enjoyable experiences I've had. For most of the conference we were able to float from lecture to lecture soaking up as much math as we could. My favorite talk was on how cells use osmosis to function.

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This project gave me an idea of what a fulfilling career could look like. Working together with a team of intelligent people towards a common goal is really where I thrive. This was one of the first times I saw this in myself.

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