astronomy

Nina Fefferman

Nina Fefferman is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nina Fefferman rather than just read about it. In short: Nina H. Fefferman (born December 20, 1978) is an American applied mathematician and theoretical biologist.

Key takeaways

Nina Fefferman belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nina Fefferman to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nina Fefferman from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nina H. Fefferman (born December 20, 1978) is an American applied mathematician and theoretical biologist. Her research uses mathematical modeling to explore the behavior, evolution, and control of complex systems with application in areas from basic science (evolutionary sociobiology and epidemiology) to direct real-world applications (bio-security, cyber-security, bio-inspired design, and wildlife conservation). She studies how individual behaviors can affect an entire population, frequently focusing on a networks approach. She has written over 150 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters and been funded by a variety of US governmental agencies and private foundations throughout her career. Fefferman is the founding director and PI of the US NSF Center for Analysis and Prediction of Pandemic Expansion (APPEX) and also serves as the director of the National Institute for Modeling Biological Systems (NIMBioS) (previously the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis). Both of these organizations are based at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where Fefferman is also a professor in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Mathematics.

Early life and education Nina Fefferman is the daughter of Julie and Charles Fefferman, a mathematician at Princeton University. She is the sister of composer Lainie Fefferman. She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at Princeton in 1999. She later received her master's degree in the same subject from Rutgers University in 2001 and her Ph.D. in biology from Tufts University in 2005. Her thesis focused on the use of mathematical models in evolutionary biology and epidemiology.

Publications Her most cited papers are:

Lofgren E, Fefferman NH, Naumov YN, Gorski J, Naumova EN. Influenza seasonality: underlying causes and modeling theories. Journal of virology. 2007 Jun 1;81(11):5429-36. Wilson-Rich N, Spivak M, Fefferman NH, Starks PT. Genetic, individual, and group facilitation of disease resistance in insect societies. Annual review of entomology. 2009 Jan 7;54:405-23. Parham PE, Waldock J, Christophides GK, Hemming D, Agusto F, Evans KJ, Fefferman N, Gaff H, Gumel A, LaDeau S, Lenhart S. Climate, environmental and socio-economic change: weighing up the balance in vector-borne disease transmission. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 2015 Apr 5;370(1665):20130551. Lofgren ET, Fefferman NH. The untapped potential of virtual game worlds to shed light on real world epidemics. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2007 Sep 1;7(9):625-9.

Affiliation with various centers and institutes In addition to serving as director of APPEX and NIMBioS, Fefferman was the director/PI and lead investigator for the PREEMPT Institute which was an NSF funded PPIP Phase I pandemic preparedness research institute. Fefferman has also been involved in numerous other research centers. She was a principal investigator at START (US Dept of Homeland Security Center for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism) in a research team working to understand the social behavior and algorithms involved in the extremism of terrorism. She was an active participant at DIMACS (The Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science) to aid in collaborations and conferences about mathematical macrobiology. She served as a principal investigator at CCICADA (US Dept of Homeland Security Command, Control, and Interoperability Center for Advanced Data Analysis) to research various applications of complex systems. Fefferman was a center co-director at InForMID (Tufts University Initiative for the Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Diseases) as a researcher and lead in the area of mathematical modeling of infectious disease epidemiology.

References

External links https://eeb.utk.edu/people/nina-fefferman/ https://legacy.nimbios.org/ https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/science/mathematics/interview-charles-fefferman http://feffermanlab.org/fefferman-cv.pdf Nina Fefferman publications indexed by Google Scholar http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/index.php/ https://ccicada.org/ https://www.preemptpandemics.org/ https://www.start.umd.edu/ https://sites.tufts.edu/naumovalabs/ https://appex.org/ https://www.nimbios.org/ https://feffermanlab.org/funding.html

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nina Fefferman

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nina Fefferman claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nina Fefferman before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nina Fefferman ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nina Fefferman

In research: Nina Fefferman appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nina Fefferman in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nina Fefferman is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1978 births, 20th-century American mathematicians, 20th-century American women, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nina Fefferman outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nina Fefferman in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nina Fefferman means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nina Fefferman out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nina Fefferman in simple terms?

Nina H. Fefferman (born December 20, 1978) is an American applied mathematician and theoretical biologist.

Why does Nina Fefferman matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nina Fefferman?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nina Fefferman.