Strickland Lab
Overview
The Strickland Lab at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, led by Dr. Christopher Strickland, develops mathematical and computational models of behavior-driven systems — how the actions of individuals, from organisms to people, shape the dynamics of the populations and ecosystems they belong to. Our work spans mathematical ecology and epidemiology, including the collective movement of small organisms in fluid environments, the formation of locust swarms, the spread of disease and substance-use disorders in human communities, and the dynamics of pests and pathogens in agricultural systems.
We build mechanistic models grounded in biology and social context and then implement, simulate, and analyze them mathematically and computationally. This approach combines mathematical modeling and dynamical systems analysis, scientific computing in Python, large-scale simulation, and data visualization. Rather than treating models as black boxes, we aim for transparency: models whose structure can be understood, analyzed, and connected back to the real-world questions that motivate them. Much of our work involves collaboration with ecologists, experimentalists, and scientists across the quantitative disciplines, and we are increasingly bringing mathematical and computational tools to bear on questions of perception and decision-making.
Members of our lab gain experience across the full arc of a modeling project — formulating the mathematics, implementing efficient and reproducible scientific software, confronting models with the underlying science and associated data, and communicating results to interdisciplinary audiences. Our alumni have gone on to tenure-track faculty positions, postdoctoral research, doctoral programs, and careers in industry.
Recent Updates
- Congratulations to Ryan Campbell, our newest PhD (May 2026)!
- Margie and Dr. Strickland will be traveling the Society of Mathematical Biology Annual Meeting in Graz, Austria this July – come see us there! Dr. Strickland is organizing a minisymposium entitled “Collective Dynamics at Multiple Scales” on July 14, and we have some great speakers lined up!
About Dr. Christopher Strickland
Christopher Strickland received his PhD from Colorado State University at the end of 2013 and completed a three-year postdoc in applied mathematics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and SAMSI (the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute) from 2014 to 2017. He conducts research modeling and analyzing complex systems in ecology and infectious disease epidemiology related to human and animal behavior, and is particularly interested in mechanistic and computational approaches to problem solving – including confronting mathematical models with data. His research is highly interdisciplinary in nature, and typically includes a blend of mathematics, computer science, and probabilistic modeling in collaboration with domain-specific scientists. Dr. Strickland is an affiliate of the National Institute for Modeling Biological Systems (NIMBioS) and has a courtesy appointment in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Education
- Colorado State University, Ph.D in Mathematics
- University of Florida, M.S. in Mathematics
- University of Mississippi, Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, B.S, in Mathematics, B.A. in French
Research Interests
- Mathematical and Probabilistic Modeling, Scientific Computing, Simulation, Data Visualization, Collective Behavior, Animal Behavior, Dynamical Systems, Mathematical Ecology
Contact
- Contact: cstric12@utk.edu
- Personal Website – Christopher Strickland
- Office: 252 Ayres Hall
- ORCID Profile
- Faculty Profile
