Proefschrift

Jessica J. Cunningham Jessica J. Cunningham was born on September 29, 1986 in Bay City, Michigan, USA. She graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics (2008) with a focus in astronomy astrophysics and a thesis entitled ‘Inequalities in Hilbert Spaces with Application to Particle Acceleration Phenomena in Plasma Physics.’ She then joined Quantum Technology Sciences, Inc. in Cocoa Beach, FL as a Scientific Programmer / Mathematician. Here she developed and tested an intrusion detection system sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD) with a focus on translating seismic data into functional information. She returned to the Florida Institute of Technology to complete a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems (2011) with a thesis entitled ‘Comparative Analysis of Language Dependent Serial, Parallel, and GPU Implementations of the N-Body Problem.’ In 2010 Jessica joined the Moffitt Cancer Research Center in Tampa, FL as a research associate in the Integrated Mathematical Oncology department. After six years of pretending she wasn’t going to get a PhD, she enrolled in the Department of Data Science and Knowledge Engineering for a PhD in Mathematical Oncology at Maastricht University, Netherlands. In her PhD research, using mathematics as a bridge, she studies metastatic disease at the intersection of clinical oncology and evolutionary ecology. She is particularly interested in revolutionizing how we administer currently available drugs to manage metastatic disease as a long-term chronic condition. Recently she has found inspiration from integrated pest management and hopes to develop a similar ‘integrated metastatic management’ that could drastically reduce drug usage, delay or completely prevent evolution of resistance to available therapies, and lengthen the overall survival of patients with metastatic disease. Jessica lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, with her husband Zane and can be found playing with her two daughters Penelope and Charlotte, sticking to her astronomy roots by using her 12 inch Dobsonian telescope or building a new one, and (believe it or not) Olympic weightlifting. Publications Cunningham JJ , Brown JS, Gillies RJ, and Gatenby RA. (2021) Coupled source- sink habitats select for spatial and temporal variation of molecular properties of cancer cells. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Burmeister AR, Hansen E, Cunningham JJ , Rego EH, Turner PE, Weitz JS, and Hochberg ME. (2021). Fighting microbial pathogens by integrating host ecosystem interactions and evolution. BioEssays. 160