James Keener (1946–2026)

Mathematical Physiology,
by Keener and Sneyd.

James Keener died in April. He was a biomathematician who worked at the University of Utah. In Chapter 10 of Intermediate Physics for Medicine and Biology, Russ Hobbie and I reference the second edition of his wonderful, highly-cited, two-volume textbook with James Sneyd, Mathematical Physiology (a third edition came out last year). 

I’ve been following Keener’s work since I was a graduate student. His study of reentry induction in a sheet of anisotropic cardiac tissue influenced my own work significantly (J. Math. Biol., Volume 26, Pages 41–56, 1988). He and I were both were interested in the bidomain model of the heart, a mathematical description of the electrical properties of cardiac tissue. I mentioned him in my brief history of the bidomain model because of his article in a special issue of the journal Chaos.

The next publication is an exception to my rule of not citing reviews. It appears in a 1998 focus issue of the journal Chaos edited by Art Winfree and dedicated to describing fibrillation in normal ventricular myocardium. It included a review by Brad Roth and Wanda Krassowska (Roth and Krassowska 1998), an analysis of an improved algorithm to solve the bidomain equations by mathematician Jim Keener of the University of Utah and his student Kristina Bogar (Keener and Bogar 1998), and the paper we examine in this section, a review by Natalia Trayanova and her graduate students Kirill Skouibine and Felipe Aguel (Trayanova, Skouibine, and Aguel 1998).

The citation to Keener’s article was

Keener JP, Bogar K (1998) A numerical method for the solution of the bidomain equations in cardiac tissue. Chaos 8:234–241.

I could discuss many of Keener’s other articles. He wrote an excellent review about modeling traveling waves with singular perturbation theory (Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, Volume 32, Pages 326–361, 1988) and did some research on ephaptic coupling in cardiac tissue that I wasn’t so keen on (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Volume 107, Pages 20935–20940, 2010). But overall I found his research to be uniformly excellent. I would rank him just behind the late Art Winfree as the best mathematical biologist I have ever known.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked to Jim. He came to Oakland University, where I worked, in 2012 and gave an excellent lecture. I was the host for his trip, and we had many enjoyable hours discussing the heart. To learn more about Keener and his work, read his article “My Career in Mathematical Biology: A Personal Journey.”

I will miss him.  

James Keener, “The Mathematics of Life: Making Diffusion Your Friend”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVERIzti6IU&t=4s