Visiting lecturer: James Keener

Jim Keener is a Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of Utah. He was trained in applied mathematics at Caltech. Early in his career he worked on problems of chemical and biological dynamics with emphasis on spatial and temporal patterns in excitable media. He devoted substantial attention to the cardiac electrical conduction system, studying the dynamics of cardiac arrhythmias. As time went on, his interests broadened to include the dynamics of cellular and systems physiological processes, and these interests are reflected in the book Mathematical Physiology, coauthored with James Sneyd. Lately he is working to understand a ranging variety of physiological processes including calcium handling by cardiac cells, the construction of flagellar rotary motors, and formation of biogels.

Prof. Keener will lecture on aspects of cardiac dynamics. He will give an overview of how mathematical modeling can give insight into the behavior of the cardiac conduction system, its normal and abnormal function. In particular he will describe how reentrant arrhythmias are initiated and how they are maintained in time, asking, but not completely answering, what might be done to prevent either of these from occurring.