Congratulations to Professor Huaiping Zhu, who was honoured this year by the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society (CAIMS). He received the 2024 CAIMS-Fields Industrial Prize, and presented the Industrial Research Prize Lecture at the 2024 CAIMS Annual Meeting, held June 24-27, 2024.

Zhu, based in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics, is a leader in infectious disease modelling. He directs the Centre for Disease Modelling (CDM) and Laboratory of Mathematical Parallel Systems (LAMPS) at York, as well as the pan-Canadian One Health Modelling Network for Emerging Infection (OMNI). Through his work in CDM, LAMPS and OMNI, he has advanced the understanding of pandemic dynamics and provided timely guidance for public health policy.

His CAIMS Industrial Research Prize Lecture focused on modelling studies for the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases in Canada. Warming, climate variability and extreme weather events are expected to drive an increase in frequency and intensity of mosquito-borne disease (MBD) outbreaks globally. In Canada, this will mean an increased risk of endemic and emerging MBD outbreaks, such as West Nile virus, dengue and other MBDs with origins in tropical regions. To characterize the incidence and spread of mosquito-borne diseases among people and animals, the West Nile virus surveillance system has adopted a One Health approach involving experts from human, animal and environmental domains.

In his lecture, Zhu presented data-driven modelling for Culex mosquito populations, as well as a dynamic study of models for the threshold conditions for an outbreak and recurrent outbreaks. He also discussed the risk of MBDs in Canada if warming continues, and how modelling studies will contribute to early warning capacity for emerging infectious disease outbreaks as a key adaptive response to climate change.