My research concerns the application of mathematics to problems in ecology, cell biology and medicine. The objective is this research is to use mathematics to obtain a better understanding of complex behaviour in biology. Often this involves developing new mathematics in order to study the mathematical models. Specific topics on which my research is focussed include spatiotemporal dynamics of cyclic populations, vegetation patterns in semi-arid environments, and long-range cell-cell interactions in developmental biology and tumour growth.

I have been Professor of Mathematics at Heriot-Watt University since January 1998. I was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge (1985-1988), followed by graduate work at the University of Washington. My doctorate from the University of Oxford (1991) was supervised by J.D. Murray, FRS. I did postdoctoral work at Oxford, and was a Lecturer(1994-1997) and then Senior Lecturer (1997) at the University of Warwick before moving to Heriot-Watt.