Mathematics for People Who Love Animals
Plenty of students who dream of vet school or animal science stall out in precalculus or calculus. Not because they can’t do it, but because nothing in the course connects to the reason they came. We fix the connection. When the derivative describes a drug clearing a horse’s bloodstream, when the differential equation is a heartbeat, and when the statistics describe a herd of individuals, students stick with it. That’s who we build for.
For Students of Biology, Animal Science, and Veterinary Science
Through our University of Arizona partnerships, students learn math and computation on real horse questions:
Course-based research (CURE / VIP). Undergraduates in the Horse Science Innovation Lab analyze data our team collects with the horses (heart rate, heart-rate variability, movement) and carry a project from raw data to a public poster session. The course is computation-first: signal processing, statistics, and scientific storytelling on real equine datasets. No horse experience required.
Mathematical modeling projects. In upper-division modeling courses, student teams build models with direct veterinary relevance: blood flow in the equine aorta, airflow in the upper airway, comparative studies of mammalian hearts.
Free tutorials. The mathematics behind those models, from the first equation to simulations you can run yourself, is now a set of free, open tutorials by our founder: the theory at github.com/fairyflies9/Fluid-Dynamics-and-IBM-Theory and the hands-on side at github.com/fairyflies9/Using-IB-Software. A horse example, blood flow through the carotid artery, is on the way.
Early math with real data. Even introductory courses can run on horse examples, like modeling a real equine electrocardiogram with an oscillator equation.
Where the horses fit. In our Al-Marah years, students often worked directly with the horses. Today’s university coursework is fully computational: students analyze data our team gathers with the program horses, build models, and run simulations from anywhere. Students who want in-person horse experience can ask us about supervised internships and volunteer pathways with partners such as Mighty Minds.
This fall. Fall 2026: VIP computational research spots with the University of Arizona, veterinary applications in MATH 481, and demonstrations and clinics at Rancho del Nido, starting with the Dominique Barbier clinic December 18–20.
Community Outreach
Horse-centered math travels light. Our smartphone gait-modeling workshop was run by Tucson High School students: horse motion to mathematics to running code, in one afternoon, on nothing but their own phones. We also give public talks on the science and history of equine movement and host gatherings that put researchers, students, and horsepeople in the same arena.
Teachers: our complete classroom labs (slides, worksheets, teacher guides, and the free Horse Gait Lab web app) are open to everyone. Start at our Tools & Lessons hub, or go straight to the repository at github.com/equiphysics/education.