Catherine Beauchemin

Research Fields: Virophysics
Term and History: 2018-04-01 - Senior Visiting Scientist
Other Affiliations: Professor, Ryerson University
Related Websites: Dr. Catherine Beauchemin's personal website

Self-introduction

I am a Professor of Physics at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, and a Senior Visiting Scientist in iTHEMS at RIKEN at Wako-shi. I was born in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. My first language is French, I had to learn English as a second language, and now I am trying to learn Japanese as my third. I did my undergraduate studies in Computational Physics at the University of Ottawa, where I became interested in complex systems and natural computations. I completed my Doctoral studies in Biophysics at the University of Alberta which is where I began to apply physics and computer modelling to study virus infections. This motivated my postdoctoral fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Prof. Alan Perelson's laboratory where my passion for modelling the spread of virus infections through a person or a cell culture really took off.

My primary research focus is developing parsimonious, accurate computer/math models of virus infections in vitro, mostly influenza but also HIV, hepatitis C virus, respiratory syncytial virus and ebola virus. More generally, I like applying the methods of physics and computer modelling to fields where theoretical/quantitative analysis is less developed, like biology and health research, or even ergonomics! I think the methodologies developed in physics can translate to many other fields and provide new insights. Most of my work requires direct collaborations with experimental virologists. I also really enjoy convincing other physicists and mathematicians to join me in solving these types of problems across disciplines. For me, iTHEMS is an ideal environment to develop such collaborative projects.