DE Seminar: Connor Olson (Penn State)

Title: Surprises in Risk-Distancing Infection Games

Abstract:

Human behavior is a fundamental factor determining the trajectory of an epidemic, but is often ignored in standard epidemic models. One approach to parameterizing behavior in these models is through the conceptual framework of game theory. In this talk, I will present a novel epidemic game, inspired by pathogens like cholera, that exhibits multiple Nash equilibria, a surprising property for simple epidemic games. We will first explore the structure of solutions over a restricted strategy space, which will give insight into the impact multiple equilibria strategies has on a health institutions effectiveness at responding to an epidemic.  Then we will discuss the analysis of this game for a more general strategy space using a Hamiltonian approach toward optimization. This analysis, which depends upon characterizing phase planes of a related Filippov system to constrain relevant trajectories, will allow us to identify interesting and unintuitive equilibrium behaviors that arise in certain parameter regimes of this game.

https://cdolson.org