Raluca Eftimie

Raluca is a Ph.D. graduate student in the Department of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences co-supervised by Mark Lewis and Prof. Gerda de Vries. Her research focuses on the dynamics of group formation in self-organizing groups of individuals. The spatial interaction between individuals is the result of 3 types of social forces: attraction towards other members of the group, repulsion from them and a tendency to align with neighbors.

Raluca's aim is to develop a mathematical model (using a nonlinear system of partial differential  equations) that takes into consideration these aspects and addresses two problems: group formation and activity patterns.
Depending on the amplitudes of these social forces, the model may have applications, for example, to the study of insect swarms (high attraction and low or no alignment), bird flocks or schools of fish (high attraction, high alignment).

The mathematical tools that Raluca uses include: analytical methods for PDE's, bifurcation theory, perturbation theory, and numerical simulations.

University of Alberta | Dept. of Math & Statistical Sciences | Dept. of Biology | Centre for Mathematical Biology