I am a lecturer in biological complexity science employed at the University of York

My appointment is jointly between the Department of Biology and the Department of Mathematics

  • Department of Biology, Room B/D/001A
  • Tel: +44 (0)1904 (32)8572
  • Fax: +44 (0)1904 (32)8505
  • email: jamie.wood - at - york.ac.uk
  • twitter @2jamiewood

Current group:

Simon Croft (Year 4 phD Student)
Kazuki Iizuka (Year 2 phD Student)
Daniel Upton (Year 1 phD Student)
Joseph Butterick (Year 1 phD Student)
Cicik Alfiniyah (Year 1 phD Student)
Michael Bottery (CIDCATS Rotation Student)
Jason Cosgraove (CIDCATS Rotation Student)
I am interested in recruited graduate students to work on the interface between mathematics, computer simulation and biology in a breadth of fields. If this interests you have a look at my current projects or contact me if you wish to discuss a prospective project.

Some selected events and activities

Michael Bottery has started a CIDCATS rotation project working on spatial models of bacterial colonies and Jason Cosgrove is work on metabolic models of the Niesseria Genus.
A powerpoint of my final year biology projects for next year is now available.
Michael Bottery has started a CIDCATS rotation project working on metabolic models of Sodalis
Successful NERC grant! Working with Dunc Cameron and Michael Brockhurst. Ewan Minter has been appointed as the empirical post-doc. Theory post-doc post now open.
I gave a talk in Edinburgh on Bayesian model fitting
I gave a talk in Leeds on Bayesian model fitting
3 New phD students started working with me - Daniel Upton (working on aspergillus niger jointly with Simon McQueen-Mason), Joseph Butterick (working on predator-prey models jointly with Daniel Franks) and Cicik Alfiniyah (working on bacteria colony spreading with Martin Bees).
I attended MMEE2013, gave a short talk and caught up with colleagues old and new
A powerpoint of my final year biology projects for next year is now available.
Liz Gothard is doing a short CIDCATS project looking at the spatial properties of different bacterial strains within biofilms.
Chris Watson has joined my group for a year long C2D2 project looking at glycosalation in Helo and Cho cells. I'll be doing the modelling bits with him with the lab data coming from Dani Ungar.
I gave a short talk at CoSyDy 2013 at Imperial college, london
Kazuki Iizuka has joined my group as graduate student looking a dynamic FBA modelling of e-coli with Gavin Thomas
Lyndsey Flannigan is doing a short CIDCATS project looking at the metabolic capabilities of the tzetse fly symbiont Sodalis Glossinidis with Gavin Thomas
I was invited to the ZiF at Bielefeld to give a talk on "The Impact of Social Networks in Collective Motion" at the Collective Motion in Biological Systems: from Data to Models workshop
With Dov Stekel I ran the third Stomp training workshop, this one on Quorum sensing at the Sutton Bonnington Campus at Nottingham.
I have published a series of papers on collective motion, including one today in American Naturalist - see publications.
I gave the Ecology and Evolution seminar in York on "Modelling collective motion"
I was awarded some money to explore the deliberate practice method of teaching for my Dynamical Systems Course.
I was kindly invited to give a talk at the Complexity centre in Bristol by Luca Giuggioli.
I was kindly invited to give a talk at the Computer Science department in Sheffield by James Marshall.
I ran a workshop at the eScience centre in Edinburgh on metabolic modelling of microorganisms, as part of theme 14.
My son, Kester, was born on February the 12th at 5.40am.
The second workshop at the eScience centre took place on theme 14 which I help to run.
November 2010. I was invited to give talks at Queen Mary, University of London by Rosemary Harris. I also visited Ed Codling in Colchester where Nikolai Bode gave a seminar.
November 2010. I was invited to give a talk at COLMOT 2010, at the Max Plank institute for the physics of complex systems.
October 2010. Published article "Making Noise. Emergent stochastic noise in a self propelled particle model" in JTB.
September 2010. I attended a workshop Stochastic Effects in Microbial Infection: Experiments and Modelling at the national institute for e-science in Edinburgh, and presented a talk on "Exact results for optimal phenotypic switching rates". The workshop marked the beginning of e-Science theme 14: Modelling and Microbiology: using computational methods to understand how biological cells survive, proliferate and evolve. I am a theme leader.
September 2010. Published article "Limited interactions are necessary for realistic movement in animal groups" which appeared online in Proceedings of the Royal Society Interfaces. Popular interest in the area led to an interview with Elly Fiorentini on BBC Radio York.
August/September 2010. I organised a mini symposium "Individuals in Collective Motion" at MPDE 10 at Leicester
July 2010. I participated in both a further maths enrichment day and a STEM workshop.
July 2010. I organised and ran the Stomp Workshop in York
May 2010. Article appears in genetics on Stochastic Switching.
May 2010. An article on collective behaviour is due out in Proceeding B on wednesday. A video summarising the methods is available on my publications page.
March 2010 StoMP/Genesys software training workshop as part of the European Conference of Bioinformatics, Cambridge
Jan 2010. Short talk at the EPSRC funded workshop on extended particle systems in Warwick
Jan 2010. e-Science bid is successful. I will be a theme leader, with Ros Allen and Dov Stekel on a theme entitled Modelling and Microbiology.
July 2009. Stomp workshop in Edinburgh. The research workshop lasted for four days and seemed to go well.
May 2009 Richard Morris (JIC) invited me to give a seminar at the JIC in Norwich on modelling respiration in Neisseria Meningititus.
October 2008. The MICROSYST White Rose Network has begun.
October 2008. Nikolai Bode has started as my first graduate student looking at the fundamentals of collective motion.
July 2008 Present a talk on predation and evolution in collective motion at the European Congress of Behavioural Biology at Dijon
Jan 2008 TRANSIT has been awarded starting 1st Jan. I am helping to run the summer students scheme.
Nov 2007 I organised and hosted MILE Gaia Week, with events and research developments on this still often controversial theory.
My daughter was Born on October 9th 2007 -- Pictures of Beth
September 2007, the StoMP grant is successful. I will be Co-I on a successful grant entitled "Stochastic dynamical Modelling for Prokaryotic gene regulatory networks". I'm running the electronic interface -- StoMPnet.org.

May 2007. I've recently published an article in Proceedings of the Royal Society 'B' that has attracted media interest. The paper can be found here:

Article in Proc. Royal Soc. B.

and some of the media articles can be found here:

Channel4
Aberdeen Press and Journal
Yorkshire Post