Rate My Professor Sean Lawley

Lawley's research centers on stochastics in physiology and medicine within mathematical biology, focusing on diffusion in stochastic environments, cellular dynamics, narrow escape problems, first passage times, stochastic search, reaction kinetics, and applications such as ovarian aging and menopause delay, medication nonadherence, antibiotic resistance from missed doses, and optimal dosing regimens for GLP-1 receptor agonists and incretin mimetics. He has received the Presidential Scholar award from the University of Utah (2024-2027), NSF CAREER Award (DMS-1944574, 2020-2025, $450,000), SIAM Activity Group on Life Sciences Early Career Prize (2018), and L.P. and Barbara Smith Award for Teaching Excellence (2013). His grants include NSF DMS-2325258 (2023-2026, $594,570 total) for stochasticity in ovarian aging and biotechnologies for menopause delay, and NSF DMS-1814832 (2018-2023, $250,000) for diffusion in stochastic environments. Lawley has authored over 100 publications, including "Mathematical recapitulation of the end stages of human ovarian aging" (Science Advances, 2024), "Modeling the extension of ovarian function after therapeutic targeting of the primordial follicle reserve" (Human Reproduction Update, 2025), "Passage times of fast inhomogeneous immigration processes" (Chaos, 2025, Editor's Pick), "Narrow escape with imperfect reactions" (Physical Review E, 2024, Editor's Suggestion), and numerous papers in SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, Journal of Chemical Physics, and Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. His work has accumulated more than 1,600 citations, and he advises Ph.D. students including Claire Plunkett.