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Mary Ruth Myerscough is an Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics at the University of Sydney's School of Mathematics and Statistics.
Education[edit]
Mary was born in Brighton UK and started her education at the Sacred Heart Convent in Edinburgh in 1967. Mary and her family moved to Australia at the end of 1968, to allow her father, Dr Peter Myerscough, to take up a position in the then School of Botany at the University of Sydney. Peter Myerscough stayed at the University of Sydney until his retirement in 1993. Mary was further educated at North Turramurra Public School (1969–1971), Hornsby Public School (1972 and 1973) and at Ku-ring-gai High School (1974–1979). Mary went on to do an undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, graduating with first class honours in Applied Mathematics in 1983. After finishing a Master of Science by Research, also at the University of Sydney, she moved to Oxford University in 1985 from which she graduated with a DPhil in Mathematics in 1988. She returned to Sydney in 1988 to take up an Australian Research Council postdoctoral fellowship in the School of Chemistry at Macquarie University. In 1990 she was appointed as Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at the University of Sydney where she has been ever since. Mary’s mother, Joan Myerscough (nee Bryce) had an Arts degree majoring in Mathematics.
Research[edit]
Mary’s main research interests are collective animal behaviour, in particular the behaviour of termites and honeybees, and atherosclerosis.
Collective behaviour[edit]
Mary developed mathematical models of nest architecture by termites,[1][2] showing that the elaborate nests termites build can be explained by stigmergy. Unfortunately, termites do not easily lend themselves to experimental manipulation, so Mary shifted focus to honeybees so that her models could be directly tested, allowing for more realistic models. The questions she addressed dealt with the reasons why honeybee queens mate with many males (polyandry),[3][4][5] how bee colonies and swarms maintain a more or less constant temperature (thermoregulation),[6] how honeybees organize their foraging,[7][8][9][10] the ways in which honeybee swarms select a new nest site,[11][12][13][14] and finally how swarms of honeybees are guided once the swarm is en route towards the nest site it has selected.[15][16] Mary’s models translate the behaviour of the individual insects into the emergent behaviour of the collective.
Atherosclerosis[edit]
Mary’s research on atherosclerosis aims to understand how atherosclerotic plaques form by using ordinary differential and partial differential equations to model the non-linear interactions between cell density and concentrations of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), high-density lipoproteins (HDL) and cytokine concentrations within the innermost layer of the blood vessel wall.[17][18] Atherosclerotic plaques are fatty accumulations that form in artery walls when LDL penetrates the blood vessel lining and initiates an immune response. Macrophages (white blood cells) respond, enter the vessel wall, consume LDL and become lipid-filled foam cells. Foam cells are either removed from the vessel wall or they die and form an extracellular deposit of fat and cellular debris covered by a fibrous cap. If the cap is fragile and breaks, then fat and cellular debris are released into the blood stream and cause heart attacks or strokes. Understanding how atherosclerotic plaques form is crucial in reducing death from cardiovascular disease. There is copious experimental work on atherosclerosis allowing mathematicians to use existing data to create mathematical models as a powerful new way of looking at the problem.
Recent positions of responsibility[edit]
| Year | Position |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Associate Head of School (Learning and Teaching), Mathematics and Statistics |
| 2013 | Chair, Academic Program Committee, School of Mathematics and Statistics |
| 2013 | Member, Faculty of Science Learning and Teaching Committee |
| 2013 | Director, Centre for Mathematical Biology, University of Sydney |
| 2013 | Member, Charles Perkins Centre Program Development Group |
| 2013 | Chair, ANZIAM J.H. Mitchell medal selection committee |
| 2012–2013 | Member of the Research in Universities and Similar Institutions sub-committee (working on the Decadal Plan for Mathematics) |
| 2011 | Member, Review Panel for University of Sydney Postgraduate Coursework Program in Medical Physics |
| 2009 | Member, Bellman Prize Committee. This was an international committee to award the Bellman prize the best paper published in Mathematical Biosciences in the previous two years. |
| 2009–2012 | Postgraduate Director, School of Mathematics and Statistics |
| 2009–2012 | Member, Faculty of Science Board of Postgraduate Research Studies |
| 2008- | Member of the Editorial Board of Mathematical Biosciences, an international journal in Mathematical Biology. |
| 2007–2012 | Elected Board member and Secretary for the Society for Mathematical Biology. This is an international society. |
| 2006–2008 | Treasurer and member of organizing committee for Australia and New Zealand Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ANZIAM) Conference 2008 |
References[edit]
- ^ [O’Toole, D.V., Robinson, P.A. & Myerscough, M.R. 1999 Self-organised criticality in termite architecture: a role for crowding in ensuring ordered nest expansion. Journal of Theoretical Biology 198, 305–327]
- ^ [O’Toole, D.V., Robinson, P.A. & Myerscough, M.R. 2003 Self-organised criticality and emergent oscillations in models for termite architecture with crowding. Journal of Theoretical Biology 221, 15–27.]
- ^ [Myerscough, M.R. & Oldroyd, B.P. 2004 Simulation models of the role of genetic variability in social insect task allocation. Insectes Sociaux 51, 146–152]
- ^ [Graham, S., Myerscough, M.R., Jones, J.C. & Oldroyd, B.P. 2006 Modelling the role of intracolonial genetic diversity on regulation of brood temperature in honey bee (Apis mellifera) colonies. Insectes Sociaux, 53, 226–232]
- ^ [Jones, J.C., Myerscough, M.R., Graham, S. & Oldroyd, B.P. 2004 Honey bee nest thermoregulation: Diversity promotes stability. Science 305, 402–404]
- ^ [Myerscough, M.R. 1993 A simple model for temperature regulation in honeybee swarms. Journal of Theoretical Biology 162, 381–393]
- ^ [Cox, M.D. & Myerscough, M.R. 2003 A flexible model of foraging by a honey bee colony: the effects of individual behaviour on foraging success. Journal of Theoretical Biology 223, 179–197]
- ^ [Beekman, M., Oldroyd, B.P. & Myerscough, M.R. 2003 Sticking to their choice—honey bee subfamilies abandon declining food sources at a slow but uniform rate. Ecological Entomology, 28, 233–238]
- ^ [Edwards, J.R. & Myerscough, M.R. 2011 Intelligent decisions from the hive mind: Foragers and nectar receivers of Apis mellifera collaborate to optimise active forager numbers. Journal of Theoretical Biology 271, 64-77]
- ^ [Myerscough, M.R., Edwards, J.R. & Schaerf T.M. 2014 Models for the Recruitment and Allocation of Honey-bee Foragers. pp 67-86 in In Silico Bees edited by J. Devillers, Taylor and Francis]
- ^ [Myerscough, M.R. 2003 Dancing for a decision: a matrix model for nest-site choice by honeybees. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 270, 577–582]
- ^ [Perdriau, B.S. & Myerscough M.R. 2007 Making good choices with variable information: a stochastic model for nest-site selection by honey bees. Biological Letters, 3, 140–143]
- ^ [Schaerf, T.M., Myerscough. M.R., Makinson, J.C. & Beekman, M. 2011 Inaccurate and unverified information in decision making: a model for the nest site selection process of Apis florea. Animal Behaviour 82, 995-1013]
- ^ [Schaerf, T.M. Makinson, J.C., Myerscough, M.R. & Beekman, M. 2013 Do small swarms have an advantage when house-hunting? The effect of swarm size on nest-site selection by Apis mellifera. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 10, UNSP 20130533]
- ^ [Merrifield, A., Myerscough, M.R. & Weber, N.C. 2006 Statistical tests for analysing directed movement of self-organising animal groups. Mathematical Biosciences, 203, 64–78]
- ^ [Diwold, K., Schaerf, T.M., Myerscough. M.R., Middendorf, M. & Beekman, M. 2011 Deciding on the wing: in-flight decision making and search space sampling in the red dwarf honeybee Apis florea. Swarm Intelligence, 5, 121-141]
- ^ [Ougrinovskaia,A., Thompson,R. &Myerscough, M.R. 2010 An ODE model of early stages of atherosclerosis: mechanisms of the inflammatory response. Bull. Math. Bio. 72, 1534-1561]
- ^ [Cohen, A., Myerscough, M.R., & Thompson, R.S. 2014 Athero-protective effects of high density lipoproteins (HDL): An ODE model of the early stages of atherosclerosis. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 76, 11117-1142]