Biological evolution describes how populations of individuals change over time. The three fundamental principles of evolution are mutation, selection and cooperation. I will present the mathematical formalism of evolution focussing on stochastic processes. I will discuss amplifiers and suppressors of natural selection, evolutionary game theory and evolutionary graph theory.

Further reading:

• Allen B, G Lippner, Y-T Chen, B Fotouhi, N Momeni, S-T Yau, MA Nowak (2017)
• Evolutionary dynamics on any population structure. Nature 544: 227-230
• Nowak MA (2006). Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life.

Professor Nowak is one of the most successful mathematical biologists in the world and also a terrific speaker. He works on evolutionary dynamics and evolutionary game theory, including the evolution of cooperation and human language, as well as the dynamics of virus infections and human cancer. Nowak is the author of over 400 papers and four books, including 54 papers in Nature, 18 papers in Science, and more than 50 papers in PNAS. His work has been cited more than 94,000 times, and his H-index = 136. His textbook Evolutionary Dynamics (2006) provides an overview of the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems. His general audience book SuperCooperators (2011) argues that cooperation is the third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and selection.

https://www.math.dartmouth.edu/activities/kemeny-lectures/