I am a theoretical ecologist who develops mathematical models to explain ecological, evolutionary, and epidemiological patterns. My primary goals are to understand how the direct and indirect interactions between species shape the population-level dynamics of communities and how those effects are influenced by intraspecific and interspecific variation in species’ traits.
The three main research themes in my group are (i) the population-level effects of adaptive intraspecific variation, (ii) the epidemiological dynamics of multiple-host-multiple-pathogen communities, and (C) the context-dependent responses to environmental change. The work in my group involves a combination of theory development, numerical simulation, and comparing model predictions with empirical data. Much of my work is done in collaboration with empiricists.
About me: I am an associate professor in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Mathematics. I received my B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from Hope College in 2005 and my Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Cornell Univeristy in 2011. I then did a postdoc in the School of Biology at Georgia Institute of Technology, part of which was supported by an NSF postdoc fellowship. From 2014-2018 I was an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Utah State University. I joined the Biology faculty at FSU in 2014.
I am currently looking for graduate students to join my group. Please see the Opportunities page for details.
Contact Information
Florida State University
319 Stadium Drive
Tallahassee, FL 32306
Office: King 4007
Phone: (850) 645-8692
E-mail: cortez[at]bio.fsu.edu