Monica Cojocaru
Professor in the Mathematics & Statistics Department at the University of Guelph.

  • I completed my B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Mathematics at the University of Bucharest (Romania) and my Ph.D. in Mathematics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. I held an NSERC postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre des Researches Mathematiques (CRM) in Montreal in 2003. I held several visiting positions at the Centre des Researches Mathematiques, the Fields Institute, Harvard, and Northwestern Universities, at University of Brescia and most recently I hold a Senior Visiting Research Fellowship at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, USA. I held one of only two Canada-US Fulbright Visiting Research Chair positions awarded in 2010 in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
  • I conduct both independent and collaborative research that consolidates and furthers our understanding of the mathematical theory involved in the time-evolution of equilibrium problems, as they are formulated coming from applications. The main focus of my research lies in the general area of nonsmooth dynamical and complex systems - theory and applications. Some of the problems I study are the so-called equilibrium problems, which concern themselves with the mathematical modelling of economic (Wardrop), game theoretic (Nash), and physical equilibria. Theoretical research in this area answers questions about existence, uniqueness, stability and sensitivity of equilibria for a wide range of applied problems (transportation, Nash/Cournot, network (social and environmental), dynamic and evolutionary games). Other research questions refer to studying parallels between classic dynamical systems models and computational emergent dynamic systems for populations (where individuals can be thought of as consumers, voters, vaccinators, etc.).

Key areas of focus include:

  • Solutions, computation, and stability of solutions for Generalized Nash Games. Generalized Nash Games were introduced as far back as the 60's, however they are now coming to the forefront from a theoretical as well as an application perspective. These are games where, in addition to a player's payoff being dependent on other players choices, each player's strategy set is also dependent upon the other players' choices. Prof. Cojocaru is interested in the links between generalized Nash strategies and replicator dynamics in a math biological sense.  She is currently collaborating with a group at the University of Limoges on AI methods in generalized Nash games.
  • Dynamics of human behaviour at individual and population levels. Environmental issues are at the forefront of our social lives and most policy makers are studying the best policies and strategies towards a decrease in harmful emissions and in consumption of non-renewable resources. Such policies need solid models of individual and population behaviour, since no policy is successful unless it is adopted by a high enough population mass. 
  • Mathematical modelling, optimization, and game theory in population health. Prof. Cojocaru has examined applications of dynamic games in vaccination behaviour, and specifically, the problem of modelling strategic interactions of various groups within a population under voluntary vaccination policy. Cojocaru and her group are modelling infection spread in child care facilities and have contributed three publications on COVID-19's impact on the population of Ontario, Canada and specifically towards school reopening policies in pandemic times. 
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