Faculty of Science Mathematics and Statistics Professor, Jianhong Wu, has been elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
Seventy-one new Fellows were elected to the academy for 2022 in recognition of their exemplary contributions to health sciences. In total, 129 nominations were submitted. Election to fellowship in the academy is considered one of the highest honours for individuals in the Canadian health sciences community and carries with it a covenant to serve the academy and the future well-being of the health sciences irrespective of the Fellow’s specific discipline.
“I would like to personally congratulate all the applicants that were elected as a Fellow in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences for 2022. This recognition is a reflection of their dedication and excellence in their field,” said Dr. Proton Rahman, Chair of the Fellowship Committee. “We look forward to having their expertise further enrich the work of our academy.”
Wu, University Distinguished Research Professor at York University, is a renowned mathematician. Wu has made foundational contributions to supporting infectious disease public health decision-making strategies based on novel applications of the bifurcation theory, a mathematical theory of long-term epidemiological scenario analyses. Internationally recognized as a powerhouse in dynamical systems and data clustering, his disease modelling research provides critical insights on mechanisms behind complex patterns and is used to accurately forecast disease trends. He is a major contributor to a paradigm shift towards an extensive use of interdisciplinary modelling for evidence-based public health policy. He is the inaugural director of the York Emergency Mitigation, Engagement, Response, and Governance Institute.
Wu is also a Senior Canada Research Chair in industrial and applied mathematics at York University, and he is the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Industrial Research Chair in vaccine mathematics, modelling and manufacturing. His expertise includes dynamical systems and bifurcation theory that develops methodologies to identify long-term dynamic scenarios of an epidemiological system. He also pioneered a neural network architecture for pattern recognition in high dimensional data. He is also known for his efforts in developing reciprocal linkages and collaborations between public health and mathematics, globally. Since the 2003 SARS outbreak, Wu has led multiple national teams to develop mathematical technologies to address key public health issues relevant to emerging infectious diseases including SARS, pandemic influenza, Ebola, antimicrobial drug resistance, COVID-19 and Lyme disease. To learn more about his work, see this YFile story.