Computational and mathematical approaches are crucial to the study of evolution and therefore many aspects of biology, medicine, and anthropology. In this talk I will present different projects in which I have applied such approaches to the study of biological and cultural evolution: the evolution of stress-induced mutation, in which cells increase their mutation rate in response to stress and maladaptation; the evolution of non-vertical transmission, in which individuals inherit traits from non-parental adults; and finally, predicting results of microbial competitions from experimental data.
Yoav Ram, Department of Biology, Stanford University.
Yoav completed his Ph.D. via a direct track at the Faculty of Life Sciences at Tel Aviv University in 2016 under the supervision of Lilach Hadany, following a B.Sc. in Math and Biology. He is a postdoctoral fellow of the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics at Stanford University, where he works with Marcus Feldman, an NAS, AAAS, and APS member and a Dan David prize laureate. Yoav applies computational and mathematical methods to research in different areas of evolutionary theory, including microbial evolution, evolution of inheritance mechanisms, and the mode and tempo of evolution on rugged fitness landscapes. Yoav was a lecturer at the Faculties of Life Sciences and Engineering, for which he won the Dean’s Excellence in Teaching award for 2015-16, and he provides training in Python programming for leading industrial companies in Israel and California.