Contact Information
229 Computing Applications Building, MC-382
1409 W. Green Street
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Areas
Research Description
My research interests lie in Mathematical Biology (Epidemiology, Ecology, DNA stability) and Differential Equations (discrete and continuous Schrodinger equations, Klein-Gordon equations).
Other projects I have worked on include the study of microbial communities in mosquito populations, the effect of larval competition in Dengue virus-infected mosquitoes, the quantification and analysis of bumble bee color patterns, the modeling and analysis of gene regulatory networks in mammalian limb development, and bacterium-phage dynamics.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Professor, Mathematics
Professor, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
External Links
Recent Publications
Leisman, K. P., Park, S., Simpson, S., & Rapti, Z. (2025). A simple model for the analysis of epidemics based on hospitalization data. Mathematical Biosciences, 381, Article 109380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mbs.2025.109380
Suttenfield, L. C., Rapti, Z., Chandrashekhar, J. H., Steinlein, A. C., Vera, J. C., Kim, T., & Whitaker, R. J. (2024). Phage-mediated resolution of genetic conflict alters the evolutionary trajectory of Pseudomonas aeruginosa lysogens. mSystems, 9(9). https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00801-24
Rapti, Z., Cuevas-Maraver, J., Kontou, E., Liu, S., Drossinos, Y., Kevrekidis, P. G., Barmann, M., Chen, Q. Y., & Kevrekidis, G. A. (2023). The Role of Mobility in the Dynamics of the COVID-19 Epidemic in Andalusia. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, 85(6), Article 54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11538-023-01152-5
Alomar, A. A., Eastmond, B. H., Rapti, Z., Walker, E. D., & Alto, B. W. (2022). Ingestion of spinosad-containing toxic sugar bait alters Aedes albopictus vector competence and vectorial capacity for dengue virus. Frontiers in Microbiology, 13, Article 933482. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2022.933482
Kevrekidis, G. A., Rapti, Z., Drossinos, Y., Kevrekidis, P. G., Barmann, M. A., Chen, Q. Y., & Cuevas-Maraver, J. (2022). Backcasting COVID-19: A physics-informed estimate for early case incidence. Royal Society Open Science, 9(12), Article 220329. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220329