Silas Poloni joined Lewis Research Group in February of 2024, and is co-supervised by Frithjof Lutscher. Silas’ broad research interests lie in theoretical spatial ecology. As a postdoc at LRG, he investigates how individual variability in different traits can alter how a species undergo range shift phenomena.
Silas completed his PhD in Physics in October 2023, at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of the São Paulo State University, in São Paulo, Brazil. His dissertation explored multiple mathematical aspects of biological invasions, such as the effects of interspecific interactions, landscape heterogeneity and evolution of dispersal. During his PhD, although not part of his dissertation, Silas also studied the COVID-19 pandemics in Brazil through mathematical models, exploring the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions, vaccination policies and the introduction of variants of concern. His master’s degree was obtained in 2019, also in Physics, by the same institution he got his PhD from, and he studied critical patch size problems in spatial ecology.
During his free time, Silas enjoys walking, playing guitar, building puzzles with his wife and chatting with his friends while playing some board games or video games. His favorite paper is “The strategy of model building in population biology”, by Richard Levins.