BIO2010 Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix F: Mathematics and Computer Science Panel Summary
Appendix F: Mathematics and Computer Science Panel Summary
Pages 163-175
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From page 163... ...
The panel met on March 15-16, 2001, at Boston University to discuss how to integrate that kind of knowledge into the undergraduate education of future biomedical researchers. EXPERTISE OF MEMBERS OF THE PANEL Nancy Kopell is W.G.
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From page 164... ...
In 1999 he taught an NSF Chataqua Course entitled Life Science Education: Preparing Fearless Biologists. At Tennessee he teaches courses on Mathematical Ecology, Mathematical Modeling and Evolutionary Theory, and Basic Concepts in Ecology.
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From page 165... ...
Markey Scholar, Fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, and is a member of the Stiffung Maximilianeum and the StudLienstifi~ng dies Deutschen Volkes of Germany. He teaches graduate and undergraduate students in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program; his courses include Experimental Neuroscience and Function of Neural Systems.
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From page 166... ...
She has served on advisory boards for several government agencies, including the National Toxicology Program and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as NRC committees on toxicological effects of mercury and arsenic in drinking water. She teaches graduate courses at the Harvard School of Public Health and is the program director for an Initiative for Minority Student Development Grant, which supports summer internships and predoctoral training.
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From page 167... ...
He is a winner of the NYU Alumni Association's Great Teacher Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, the lames H Wilkinson Prize in Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, and the New York City Mayor's Award for Excellence in Science and Technology.
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From page 168... ...
In addition, future biomedical researchers should graduate with the ability to do in-depth analysis in a subset of the listed topics. In addition to these content recommendations, the panel recommended early exposure to quantitative ideas, via a reorganization of the first-year biology course to introduce a variety of quantitative concepts in the context of biological themes.
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From page 169... ...
In a track designed for a quantitative biologist, a student might take one year of standard calculus, which many students now take in high school; one semester of linear algebra; one semester of statistics; a one-semester course on ordinary differential equations that includes some numerical work, possibly with packages such as Matlab; and one course on discrete mathematics tailored toward genome problems. These courses could be standard math classes and thus not add a burden on the biology department, although the discrete mathematics course could be of the type listed below for research biologists.
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From page 170... ...
Perhaps the funding for such biologically oriented REU summer programs would come jointly from the mathematics and biology directorates at the NSF (and perhaps the NIH)
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From page 171... ...
The twin purposes of such a course would be for biology students to see that mathematics and computation can play an important role in their work, and for mathematics and computer science students to see the potential for applying quantitative methods (statistics, applied mathematics, computer science) to biology and medicine.
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From page 172... ...
Where the first-year course might have considered only point neurons, for example, the senior course might consider spatially distributed neurons, thus moving up mathematically from ordinary to partial differential equations. Again, numerical methods provide a path to understanding without a formal course in partial differential equations.
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From page 173... ...
Capability in Program Design for Computational Biology and Genomics Applications A course at this level provides the minimal skills required to be an effective computer user within a computationally oriented biology research team. A good example is a course by Adam Arkin at Berkeley.
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From page 174... ...
There are not many programs designed specifically to impart quantitative literacy to biology faculty. Some existing programs target other audiences, such as quantitative training of K-12 students, high school teachers, predoctoral students, and postdoctoral students.
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From page 175... ...
Terry Speed's statistics course (also described above) might be a model for the .
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