James MacLaurin
Assistant Professor, Mathematical Sciences
614 Cullimore Hall (CULM)
About Me
I was born in Australia, and studied Pure Mathematics and Philosophy for my undergraduate degree at the University of New South Wales. I completed a Phd at Oxford in 2014, under the supervision of Prof. Jon Chapman and Tiina Roose.
Postdoctoral experience at INRIA Sophia Antipolis, France, University of Sydney and University of Utah
Education
Ph.D. ; University of Oxford ; ; 2014

B.A. ; University of New South Wales ; Philosophy ; 2007

B.S. ; University of New South Wales ; Pure Mathematics ; 2007

Office Hours
Monday 2-4 pm
2025 Fall Courses
MATH 374 - STOCHASTIC/DISCRETE BIO MODELS

MATH 333 - PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS

Teaching Interests
I enjoy teaching a wide range of mathematics. I have taught first year calculus, 3rd year undergraduate mathematical biology, and a graduate course on stochastic processes.
Past Courses
MATH 111: CALCULUS I

MATH 211: CALCULUS III A

MATH 333: PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS

MATH 337: LINEAR ALGEBRA

MATH 371: PHYSIOLOGY AND MEDICINE

MATH 373: INTRO TO MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY

MATH 373: INTRODUCTION TO MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY

MATH 374: STOCHASTIC AND DISCRETE MODELS IN BIOLOGY

MATH 691: STOCHASTIC PROCESSES

MATH 691: STOCHASTIC PROCESSES WITH APPLICATIONS

Research Interests
Mathematical Biology
Stochastic Processes
Dynamical Systems.
Journal Article
James N. MacLaurin, Jay Newby. 2025. " Extreme first passage times for populations of identical rare events." SIAM Applied Mathematics , vol. 85 , no. 1 .

James N. MacLaurin. 2023. "Phase Reduction of Waves, Patterns, and Oscillations Subject to Spatially-Extended Noise." SIAM Applied Mathematics , vol. 83 .

James N. MacLaurin, Zachary Adams. "The Isochronal Phase of Stochastic PDE and Integral Equations: Metastability and Other Properties." Journal of Differential Equations , vol. 414 , no. 5 .

James N. MacLaurin, Giulio Zucal, Christian Kuehn. 2022. "Stochastic Rotating Waves." Stochastic Dynamics .

James N. MacLaurin, Jean-Marc Fellous, Peter Thomas, Benjamin Lindner. 2022. "Stochastic oscillators in biology: introduction to the special issue." Biological Cybernetics , vol. 116 .

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Conference Abstract
"Stochastic Oscillations in Biology"
American Physical Society, 2022.

Conference Proceeding
"The Effect of Stochastic Bursting on Biological Clock Precision"
European Control Conference Proceedings, May, 2020.