Applied Math Professor Lends Statistical Expertise to Neuroscience Program

The National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology (NITMB) has invited Illinois Tech Professor of Applied Mathematics Sonja Petrović to its six-week Theory and Mathematics in Neuroscience program as a scholar-in-residence.

Petrović will rely on her extensive research experience in building statistical models for networks to guide junior researchers on projects in neuroscience during the program.

“I am excited to be able to learn new things and expand both the applications I work on and collaborate on ‘new math’ that the biology needs,” she says. “The most useful outsider is the one who asks, ‘How do you know?’ I’ll be a statistician among neuroscientists, and that’s usually where the interesting problems are hiding.”

The NITMB program, running from October 5 through November 15, 2026, in Chicago, includes three conference workshops: Dynamics in Neuroscience, Geometry in Neuroscience, and Probabilistic Inference in Neuroscience. Petrović is one of 15 invited scholars-in-residence who come from institutions such as Northwestern University, University of Chicago, Princeton University, and Brown University.

Junior researchers will conduct research throughout the program across all three conference workshops and during dedicated research weeks, with the potential for their projects to develop into long-term projects with NITMB. According to NITMB, the coordinated events throughout the program are intended to bring emerging and established researchers into an ongoing conversation around the three branches of mathematics that shape modern neuroscience: dynamics, geometry, and probability.

“The point of being a scholar-in-residence is that you can connect with so many people from all over the world that you’d otherwise never be in a room with—mathematicians, neuroscientists, statisticians,” Petrović says. “Those conversations are where new research starts. Nobody shows up to a six-week program with a finished paper. You show up with questions, and you leave with collaborators.”

Petrović’s research background includes using algebraic statistics to build models that explain data related to networks, or how things connect. Neurons operate similarly to a network, as neurons connect or they don’t. She has used her research expertise to study neurons in roundworms, as well as in human brains. Currently, Petrović has been working to find equations that describe how neurons behave over time along with Illinois Tech Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics Megan Morrison.

During the NITMB program, Petrović will also give a talk focused on how to find the appropriate models for studying networks, as well as a tutorial on algebraic statistics. In addition to her participation in the program, she will continue to teach at Illinois Tech during the fall semester.

“Biology has reached a point where it needs mathematics that either doesn’t exist yet or hasn’t been brought into biology yet,” Petrović says. “Sometimes that means new mathematics. Sometimes it means importing an established field as a new tool. My own work does both. The National Science Foundation and the Simons Foundation are funding NITMB on the bet that what’s holding modern biology back is theoretical rather than experimental.”