mathematics

Pauline van den Driessche

Pauline van den Driessche is a mathematics 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 Pauline van den Driessche rather than just read about it. In short: Pauline van den Driessche (born 1941) is a British and Canadian applied mathematician who is a professor emerita in the department of mathematics and statistics at the University of Victoria, where she has also held an affiliation in the department of computer science. Her research interests include mathematical biology, matrix analysis, and stability theory.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Pauline van den Driessche (born 1941) is a British and Canadian applied mathematician who is a professor emerita in the department of mathematics and statistics at the University of Victoria, where she has also held an affiliation in the department of computer science. Her research interests include mathematical biology, matrix analysis, and stability theory.

Education and career Van den Driessche earned bachelor's and master's degrees in 1961 and 1963 respectively from Imperial College London. She completed her doctorate in 1964 from the University College of Wales; her dissertation concerned fluid mechanics. She stayed on for a year in Wales as an assistant lecturer; she was hired as an assistant professor at the University of Victoria in 1965, and retired in 2006.

Contributions In mathematical biology, van den Driessche's contributions include important work on delay differential equations and on Hopf bifurcations, and the effects of changing population size and immigration on epidemics. She has also done more fundamental research in linear algebra, motivated by applications in mathematical biology. Her work in this area includes pioneering contributions to the theory of combinatorial matrix theory in which she proved connections between the sign pattern of a matrix and its stability, as well as results on matrix decomposition.

Awards and honors In 2005, the journal Linear Algebra and its Applications published a special issue in her honor. She was the 2007 winner of the Krieger–Nelson Prize of the Canadian Mathematical Society, and in the same year became the inaugural Olga Taussky-Todd Lecturer, an award given every four years at the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics by the International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and Association for Women in Mathematics. In 2013 she became a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics "for contributions to linear algebra and mathematical biology". She received the CAIMS Research Prize from the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society in 2019, and the 2022 Hans Schneider Prize in Linear Algebra.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pauline van den Driessche

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pauline van den Driessche claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, 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 Pauline van den Driessche 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 Pauline van den Driessche 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 Pauline van den Driessche

In research: Pauline van den Driessche appears in mathematics 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 Pauline van den Driessche 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: Pauline van den Driessche is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1941 births, 20th-century British mathematicians, 20th-century British women mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pauline van den Driessche 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 Pauline van den Driessche in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pauline van den Driessche 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 Pauline van den Driessche out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pauline van den Driessche in simple terms?

Why does Pauline van den Driessche matter?

Because it connects several mathematics 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 Pauline van den Driessche?

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 Pauline van den Driessche.