Joel E. Cohen

Head, Laboratory of Populations

Professor, Columbia University and The Rockefeller University
jec52@columbia.edu

 

Ph.D., Applied Mathematics, Harvard University, 1970; Dr. P.H., Population Sciences and Tropical Public Health, Harvard University, 1973.
Cohen's research centers on populations, especially on demography, ecology, population genetics, epidemiology and social organization of human and non-human populations, and related mathematics. His current research focuses on potential control of Changas disease in Argentina. His work includes mathematical modeling of transmission risk to humans, leading toward improvement in field intervention and disease control.

His additional research includes analysis of the food web associated with rice fields in the Philippines, with interest in larger questions about food web structure and improvements in biological control. His recent mathematical work, on relative entropy, nonnegative stochastic matrices, and nonlinear mappings, directly connects with issues raised by his work with populations.

Cohen's publications include Comparisons of Stochastic Matrices, with Applications in Information Theory, Statistics, Economics and Population Sciences (1998, with J.H.B. Kemperman and Gh. Zbaganu); How Many People Can the Earth Support? (1995); Absolute Zero Gravity (1992, with B. Devine); Community Food Webs: Data and Theory (1990, with F. Briand and C.M. Newman); and Food Webs and Niche Space (1978).

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