Peter Thomas, PhD, MA, MS, BA

Professor
Department of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Research Information

Research Interests

Mathematical neuroscience, computational cell biology, and the application of information theory and control theory to theoretical biology. Using a combination of mathematical analysis and computational modeling, he works closely with biological collaborators to understand principles of communication and control in a variety of biological systems.

Publications

Peter J. Thomas and Benjamin Lindner, "Phase Descriptions of a Multidimensional Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Process", Physical Review E, in press (2019).

Alexander Strang, Karen C. Abbott and Peter J. Thomas, "How to Avoid an Extinction Time Paradox", Theoretical Ecology, Published online March 1, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-019-0416-5

Andrew W. Eckford and Peter J. Thomas, "The Channel Capacity of Channelrhodopsin and Other Intensity-Driven Signal Transduction Receptors", IEEE Transactions on Molecular, Biological, and Multi-Scale Communications, 4(1), March 2018. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMBMC.2019.2895790

Deena R. Schmidt, Roberto F. Galan, and Peter J. Thomas, "Stochastic Shielding and Edge Importance for Markov Chains with Timescale Separation", PLoS Computational Biology 14(6), June 18, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006206

Youngmin Park, Kendrick M. Shaw, Hillel J. Chiel, Peter J. Thomas, "The Infinitesimal Phase Response Curves of Oscillators in Piecewise Smooth Dynamical Systems", 29(5), European Journal of Applied Mathematics, Oct. 2018 (special issue on theory and applications of nonsmooth dynamical systems). ArXiv version: http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.03503 Published online: 02 April 2018. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956792518000128

Casey O. Diekman, Peter J. Thomas, Christopher G. Wilson, "Eupnea, Tachypnea, and Autoresuscitation in a Closed-Loop Respiratory Control Model", J. Neurophys. 118.4 (2017): 2194-2215. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00170.2017

Jordi Giner-Baldo, Peter J. Thomas, Benjamin Lindner, "Power spectrum of a noisy system close to a heteroclinic orbit", J. Statistical Physics, published online 16 May 2017. doi:10.1007/s10955-017-1809-8

David N. Lyttle, Jeffrey P. Gill, Kendrick M. Shaw, Peter J. Thomas, Hillel J. Chiel, "Robustness, Flexibility, and Sensitivity in a Multifunctional Motor Control Model", Biological Cybernetics (Dec. 2016). DOI:10.1007/s00422-016-0704-8

Peter J. Thomas and Andrew W. Eckford, "Capacity of a Simple Intercellular Signal Transduction Channel", IEEE Transactions in Information Theory (62):12, Dec. 2016. DOI: 10.1109/TIT.2016.2599178. This is a full length, expanded version of the 2013 conference proceedings with the same title. ArXiv version: http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.1650.

Rajeet Shrestha, Barclay Shaw, Wojbor A. Woyczynski, Peter J. Thomas, Thomas Fritsch, and Alan J. Lerner, "Growth and evolution of category fluency network graphs", Journal of Systems and Integrative Neuroscience, 1, 2015. DOI: 10.15761/JSIN.1000103

David F. Anderson, Bard Ermentrout, and Peter J. Thomas, "Stochastic Representations of Ion Channel Kinetics and Exact Stochastic Simulation of Neuronal Dynamics", Journal of Computational Neuroscience, 38(1): 67-82 (Jan. 2015). http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10827-014-0528-2 ArXiv version:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.2584

Education

Post-doctoral Fellowship
Computational Neuroscience and Computational Cell Biology
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
2000
Doctor of Philosophy
Mathematics
The University of Chicago
2000
Master of Arts
Conceptual Foundations of Science
The University of Chicago
2000
Master of Science
Mathmatics
The University of Chicago
1994
Bachelor of Arts
Physics and Philosophy
Yale University
1990