I'm a professor in the departments of Mathematics & Statistics and of Biology at McMaster University. My interests range widely in spatial, theoretical, mathematical, computational and statistical ecology, evolution and epidemiology; plant community, ecosystem, and epidemic dynamics; and whatever else takes my fancy.

Contact information:

Alternate location/phone: LSB 336, x24376.

If you really want to reach me, you should probably send e-mail rather than phoning ...

Current teaching

• math 3MB, intro to modeling

Research and ideas

Past and continuing areas of research interest:

• theoretical studies on spatial dynamics of ecological communities and of epidemics (sometimes combined); competition-colonization tradeoffs, successional niches, dispersal, epidemics in homogeneous and heterogeneous landscapes, combined with statistical methods for teasing apart the influence of exogenous and endogenous drivers;
• marine reef fish population dynamics [with Craig Osenberg];
• stock analysis of sea turtle populations, combining genetic data with ecological covariates [with Karen Bjorndal and Alan Bolten];
• applications of generalized linear mixed models
• software for phylogenetic comparative methods

Publications

• on Google scholar
• here, with links to PDFs (the username/password combination is bbpapers/r*e*s*e*a*r*c*h [without the stars]); you can get a a BibTeX-formatted list as well. This list is not quite up-to-date; I'm working on it, please e-mail me if you notice something missing/want a PDF copy of a paper that's not available there.
• I try to post slides of talks on slideshare
• I post miscellaneous worked R examples on RPubs
• here are some1;3201;0c variously-baked ideas you might find interesting ...

Teaching

• Stats 4C03/6C03, Generalized linear models: current (Fall 2013), Fall 2011
• Biology 3SS3, Population Ecology: upcoming (Winter 2014) (see link for information about waivers)
• Math 747, Topics in math biology: Winter 2011
• Stats 756, Biostatistics topics: Winter 2010
• Math 2E03, Introduction to Modeling: Fall 2010

Students

Prospective

Prospective graduate students in mathematical/statistical ecology, or empirical ecology/evolution with strong quantitative interests, should contact me by e-mail. I can supervise students in the mathematics, statistics, or biology PhD programmes, or McMaster's computational science & engineering programme. While I strongly prefer students who have made at least some previous investment in quantitative tools, I do not have hard and fast rules about mathematical/statistical/computational prerequisites; please contact me to inquire.

Current

(PhD) Morgan Kain, Mike Li; (MS) Evan Mitchell

Former

PhD

• Mollie Brooks: postdoc, University of Zurich (2012, UF Biology)
• Zy Biesinger, fisheries scientist, US FWS, Lower Great Lakes office (2012, UF Fisheries and Biology, co-chair with Bill Lindberg)
• Swati DebRoy, Lecturer, Dep't of Mathematics & Statistics, UMKC (UF Mathematics, co-chair with Maia Martcheva)
• Jada White (2010, UF Biology: co-chair, Gustav Paulay)
• John Poulsen, Assistant Professor of Tropical Biology, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University (2009, Biology)
• Toshinori Okuyama, Assistant Professor at National Taiwan University (Zoology)
• Claudia Romero, courtesy faculty, UF Biology (Botany: co-chair, David Jones)
• Greg Babbitt, Visiting Assistant Professor, Rochester Institute of Technology (2009, Zoology: co-chair, Rebecca Kimball)

Professional

• My CV (short version, full version)

Book

I have published a book on statistical modeling for ecologists, in R: there is also a wiki for it, with updates, errata, and so forth. Feedback is welcome.

Software and data

• R code: source, Windows binaries
• information and code for spatial moment equations
• measles data
• Errata for Hilborn and Mangel's Ecological Detective: HTML, LaTeX, PDF.