SMRI-Applied Maths seminar: Field -- Gamilaraay Kinship Dynamics

REMINDER - SEMINAR TODAY

’Gamilaraay Kinship Dynamics’
Jared M. Field
(The University of Melbourne)

Thursday 18 March
3.30pm - 4.30pm
Carslaw 350 (University of Sydney staff and students only)
and via Zoom, register here: 
https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAkfu2vrDkiE9YG6ZP15uuGnUByeDB07t-K

Abstract: Traditional Indigenous marriage rules have been studied
extensively since the mid 1800s. Despite this, they have historically
been cast aside as having very little utility. Here, I will walk through
some of the interesting mathematics of the Gamilaraay system and
show that, instead, they are in fact a very clever construction.
Indeed, the Gamilaraay system dynamically trades off kin
avoidance to minimise incidence of recessive diseases against
pairwise cooperation, as understood formally through Hamilton’s
rule.

Biography: Jared Field completed his undergrad studies at the
University of Sydney in maths and French literature, before
reading for a DPhil in Mathematical Biology at Balliol College,
Oxford. He is now a McKenzie Fellow in the School of Mathematics
and Statistics at the University of Melbourne with broad interests
at the intersection of mathematics, evolution and ecology.