Sean Lawley is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Utah, where he joined as Research Assistant Professor in 2014, was promoted to Assistant Professor in 2016, and advanced to Associate Professor in 2021. He earned a B.S. in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009, an M.A. in Mathematics from Duke University in 2011, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Duke University in 2014 under advisors Jonathan C. Mattingly and Michael C. Reed. Since 2025, Lawley has also served as Co-founder and Chief Computational Officer at LifeAhead.

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.

Professional Email: lawley@math.utah.edu