José Barros

I am currently a researcher at CIBIO - University of Porto, working on mathematical and computational models for the evolution of viruses. The main point is to model a population that becomes infected with a certain virus, and to follow the evolution of the disease across the population, and the evolution (ergo, the mutations) of the strains of the virus, building its phylogenetic tree. The closer we get to a realist output, the better our understanding in how the disease spreads, and how the virus changes.
My background is on theoretical physics, with a BSc and an MSc at the University of Lisbon. I worked on a Master's thesis on the topic of synchronization of nonlinear oscillators. The point was to understand the behaviour of oscillators with slightly different characteristics, and model the evolution of the group behaviour when coupled, like when the heartbeats of two people start synchronizing.
My desire to understand complex systems continued into the PhD in the United Kingdom, Cranfield University. I worked on modelling the structural characteristics of the automotive supply chains, analysing the complex interconnectedness of thousands of companies as a complex network, and building a null model to predict the structure and its robustness to perturbations.
Besides my work on physics, mathematics, biology, and other academic fields around complex systems, my hobbies include playing guitar and playing futsal.

Interests:
Complex systems, Mathematical modelling, Dynamical and Discrete systems