Rate My Professor Kathleen Wilkie

Kathleen Wilkie is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Mathematics at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University. She holds a BMath from the University of Waterloo in 2003, an MMath in 2005, and a PhD in 2010 from the same institution. Earlier in her career, Wilkie served as a Lecturer and Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo from 2005 to 2010. She received the 2021 Faculty of Science Dean's Teaching Award and maintains memberships in the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society (CAIMS/SCMAI) and the Society for Mathematical Biology (SMB). Additionally, she served on the CAIMS Executive in 2018 and co-chairs the Centre for Math Medicine at the Fields Institute.

Wilkie's research employs a systems biology approach to examine host systemic responses to cancer and its treatments, focusing on the immune system. Her specializations encompass computational cancer immunology, mathematical biology, mathematical oncology, mechanistic learning, quantitative systems pharmacology, scientific computing, and virtual clinical trials. She develops mathematical models and numerical simulations to predict individual patient responses, addressing why therapies succeed for some but fail for 35% of patients with cancers such as breast, prostate, or colorectal. Key contributions include models assessing chemotherapy dosing impacts on lean body mass and tumor control amid cachexia, advocating low-dose, high-frequency regimens for palliative care to improve quality of life. Another study, published in Mathematical Medicine and Biology, demonstrates that anti-inflammatory interventions during surgery can suppress pro-tumor inflammation. Select publications feature 'Approaches to Generating Virtual Patient Cohorts with Applications in Oncology' (2023), 'Practical parameter identifiability and handling of censored data with Bayesian inference in mathematical tumour models' (2024), 'Mathematical Model of Muscle Wasting in Cancer Cachexia' (2020), and 'Editorial: Advances in mathematical and computational oncology, volume III' (2023), reflecting her editorial roles. Her models facilitate virtual clinical trials and personalized therapy selection, advancing cancer treatment optimization.