International Women's Day: Jennifer Flegg

To celebrate International Women's Day, Jennifer Flegg highlights her research and recent achievements.

I’m an Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics. I am an applied mathematician, meaning that I use mathematical tools to help answer real world problems. In particular, I apply mathematics and statistics to problems in biology and medicine. One of the areas that I work in is developing mathematical models to describe and help understand the way that cells and chemicals interact with each other during the healing of a skin wound. By building mathematical models that simulate the successful healing of a wound, I can provide biological insight into why things can sometimes go wrong and the wound doesn’t heal. In the case when a wound doesn’t heal, the mathematical models can be used to predict whether certain treatments will be able to help the wound heal.

Jennifer is also the recipient of a Christopher Heyde Medal from the Australian Academy of Science.