D.Sc. Zoology, Faculty of Science, Cape Town Univ., South Africa, 1995

Ph.D. Population modeling epidemiology and resource wildlife manag University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1976

B.S. Mathematics and Applied Mathematics University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 1971

Population modeling epidemiology and resource wildlife management

Students and postdoctoral students in my laboratory work on a broad range of theoretical and applied questions in population and biology with application to epidemiology and conservation biology.

Current Projects

At this time projects in my laboratory include:

• Appropriate Complexity Modeling of Biological Systems, computational population biology and development of the Nova modeling building platform.
• Disease Ecology with a focus on zoonotic diseases.
• Movement Ecology: exploring the causes, patterns, mechanisms and consequences of organism movements.

Learn more about our research in the Getz Lab website.

Monograph

Getz, W. M., and R. G. Haight. 1989. Population Harvesting: Demographic Models of Fish, Forests and Animal Resources. Princeton Monographs in Population Biology, Princeton University Press (pp. 391).

Text Book

Schreiber S. J., K. J. Smith and W. M. Getz, 2014. Calculus for the Life Sciences. John Wiley & Sons, 718 + xxii p.

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles (since 2015):

Carlson, C. J., K. R. Burgio, T. A. Dallas, & W. M. Getz, 2017. The Mathematics of Extinction Across Scales: From Populations to the Biosphere. In H. Kaper et.al., Mathematics of Planet Earth: Quantitative Approaches to Issues of Current Interest, Springer.
Getz, W. M., O. Muellerklein, R. Salter, C. J. Carlson, A. J. Lyons, D. P. Seidel, 2016. A web app for population viability and harvesting analyses. Natural Resource Modeling 30(2): e12120. DOI: 10.1111/nrm.12120
Moleón, M., C. Martínez-Carrasco, O. C. Muellerklein, W. M. Getz, C. Muñoz-Lozano, and J. A. Sánchez-Zapata, 2017. Carnivore carcasses are avoided by carnivores. Journal of Animal Ecology (13 June). doi: 10.1111/1365-2656.12714.
Abrahms, B., D. P. Seidel, E. Dougherty, E. L. Hazen, S. J. Bograd, A. M. Wilson, J. W. McNutt, D. P. Costa, S. Blake, J. S., Brashares and W. M. Getz, 2017. Suite of simple metrics reveals common movement syndromes across vertebrate taxa. Movement Ecology 5, Art 12, 0.1186/s40462-017-0104-2.
Harel, R., O. Spiegel, W. M. Getz, R. Nathan, 2017. Social foraging and individual consistency in following behaviour: testing the information centre hypothesis in free-ranging vultures. Proc. R. Soc. B.  284, Art 20162654. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.2654.
Tsalyuk, M., M. Kelly, W. M. Getz, 2017. Improving the Prediction of African Savanna Vegetation Using Time Series of MODIS Vegetation Products. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 131: 77-91.  DOI: 10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2017.07.012.
Getz W. M., Carlson, C. J., Dougherty, E. R., Porco, T. and Salter, R. 2017. An Agent-Based Model of School Closing in Under-Vacccinated Communities During Measles Outbreaks. Simulation, Special Issue, l-9. DOI: 10.1177/0037549717721754
Zidon, R., S. Garti, W. M. Getz, and D. Saltz, 2017. Zebra migration strategies and anthrax in Etosha National Park, Namibia. Ecosphere 8 (8)
Carlson, C. J., K. R. Burgio, E. R. Dougherty, A. J. Phillips, V. M. Bueno, C. F. Clements, G. Castaldo, T. A. Dallas, C. A. Cizauskas, G. S. Cumming, J. Doña, N. C. Harris, R. Jovani, S. Mironov, O. C. Muellerklein, H. C. Proctor, W. M. Getz, 2017. Parasite biodiversity faces extinction and redistribution in a changing climate.  Science Advances, 3 (9), e1602422.
Dougherty, E.R., C.J. Carlson, J.K. Blackburn, and W.M. Getz, 2017. A cross-validation-based approach for delimiting reliable home range estimates. Movement Ecology, 5 (1), 19
Erasmus, B, M. D. Potts, et al. 2017. Land degradation and restoration associated with changes in ecosystem services and functions, and human well-being and good quality of life.  In IPBES LDRA report.
Carlson, C. J., K. R. Burgio, T. A. Dallas, W. M. Getz, in press. The mathematics of Extinction across scales: from populations to the biosphere.  In: Mathematics of Planet Earth: Quantitative Approaches to Issues of Current Interest, H. G. Kapers and F. Roberts (Eds.), Springer.
Getz, W. M., C. R. Marshall, C. J. Carlson1, L. Giuggioli, S. J. Ryan, C. Boettiger, S. D. Chamberlain, L. Larsen, P. D’Odorico, D. O’Sullivan, S. S. Romañach, 2018. Making ecosystem models adequate. Ecology Letters, 21 (2): 153-166.
Getz, W. M. and E. J. Dougherty. Discrete Stochastic Analogs of Erlang Epidemic Models, 2018. Journal of Biological Dynamics,12 (1), 16-38.
Dougherty, E. R., D. P. Seidel, C. J. Carlson, O. Spiegel, W. M. Getz, 2018. Going through the motions: incorporating movement analyses into disease research. Ecology Letters, 21 (4), 588-604.
Carlson, C. J., W. M. Getz, K. L. Kausrud, C. Cizauskas, J. Blackburn, F. A. B Carrillo, R. Colwell, W.  R. Easterday, H. H. Ganz, P. Kamath, O. A. Økstad, W. Turner, A.-B. Kolstø, N. Chr. Stenseth, 2018. Spores and soil from six sides: the environmental biology of anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) as a case study in interdisciplinarity. Biological Reviews.
van Hooft, P., Dougherty, E. R., W. M. Getz, H. H., B. J. Greyling, B. J. Zwaan & A. D. S. Bastos, 2018. Genetic responsiveness of African buffalo to environmental stressors: a role for epigenetics in balancing autosomal and sex chromosome interactions.  PLoS ONE, 13 (2), e0191481.
Getz, W. M., R. Salter, O. Muellerklein, H. S. Yoon, K. Tallam, 2018. An Epidemic Modeling Primer and Nova Model Builder Implementation. Epidemics, 25:9-19.
Carlson, C. J., E. R. Dougherty, M. R. J. Boots, W. M. Getz, and S. J. Ryan, 2018. Consensus and conflict among ecological forecasts of Zika virus outbreaks in the United States. Scientific Reports, 8 (1), 4921.
Carlson, C. J., K. R. Burgio, T. A. Dallas, W. M. Getz, 2019. The mathematics of Extinction across scales: from populations to the biosphere.  In: Mathematics of Planet Earth: Quantitative Approaches to Issues of Current Interest, (pp. 225-264), H. G. Kapers and F. Roberts (Eds.), Springer.
Tsalyuk, M., W. Kilian, B. Reineking, and W. M. Getz, 2019.  Temporal variation in resource selection of African Elephants follows long-term variability in resource availability. Ecological Monographs, 89 (2), e0134.Dougherty, E.R., Devalpine, P., C.J. Carlson, J.K. Blackburn, and W.M. Getz, 2018. Commentry to: A cross-validation-based approach for delimiting reliable home range estimates. Movement Ecology, 6 (10).
Seidel, D. P., Dougherty, E., Carlson, C., & Getz, W. M. (2018). Ecological metrics and methods for GPS movement data. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 32 (11), 2272-2293.
Alexander KA, Carlson CJ, Lewis BL, Getz WM, Marathe MV, Eubank SG, Sanderson CE, Blackburn JK. The Ecology of Pathogen Spillover and Disease Emergence at the Human-Wildlife-Environment Interface. In: The Connections Between Ecology and Infectious Disease 2018 (pp. 267-298). Springer, Cham.
Carlson, CJ, IT Kracalik, N Ross, K Alexander, ME Hugh-Jones, M Fegan, B Elkin, T Epp, T. Shury, M Bagirova, WM Getz, JK Blackburn, 2019.   The global distribution of Bacillus anthracis and associated anthrax risk to humans, livestock, and wildlife, Nature Microbiology, 4, 1337–1343.
Getz, W. M., R. Salter, W Mgbara, 2019. Adequacy of SEIR epidemic models: assessment using Sierra Leona Ebola incidence data. Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. B., Volume DOI 10.1098/rstb.2018.0282
Miao, Z., KM Gaynor, J Wang, Z Liu, OC Muellerklein, MS Norouzzadeh, A McInturff,RCK Bowie, R Nathan, SX Yu, WM Getz, 2019. A comparison of visual features used by humans and machines to classify wildlife. Scientific Reports 9, Article 8137.
Blackburn, J. K., H. Ganz, J. M. Ponciano, W. Turner, S. J. Ryan, P. Kamath, C. Cizauskas, K. L. Kausrud, R. D. Holt, N. Chr. Stenseth, W. M. Getz, 2019. Modeling R0 for pathogens with environmental transmission. Intl. J. Env. Res. & Pub. Health, 16 (6), 954.
van Hooft, P., W. M. Getz, H. H., B. J. Greyling & A. D. S. Bastos, 2019.  A natural gene drive system influences bovine tuberculosis susceptibility in African buffalo: possible implications for disease management.  PLoS ONE, to appear.
Greenbaum, G., Getz, W. M., Rosenberg, N. A., Feldman, M. W., Hovers, E., Kolodny, O. 2019. Disease and introgression explain the long-lasting contact zone of Modern Humans and Neanderthals and its eventual destabilization. Nature Communications, 10 (1), 1-12.
Seidel, D. P., W. L. Linkater, W. Killian, P. Du Preez, W. M. Getz, 2019. Mesoscale movement and recursion behaviors of Namibian black rhinos, Movement Ecology, 7 (1), 1-14.

Honorary Research Professor, Institute of Systems Science, Durban University of Technology, South Africa, 2012+
Honorary Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 2011+
Research Fellow - Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa - 2009
Visiting Fellow - Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem - 2007
Visiting Lecturer - Australian Research Council's Center of Excellence in Math and Stats of Complex Systems - 2004
Fellow - Royal Society of South Africa - 2003
Extraordinary Professor, Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria, South Africa, 2002-2013
Fellow - California Academy of Sciences - 2000
Chancellor's Professor - University of California, Berkeley - 1998
Fellow - American Association for the Advancement of Science - 1997
D.Sc. - Faculty of Science, University of Cape Town, South Africa - 1995
Senior U.S. Scientists Research Award - Alexander von Humboldt Foundation - 1992