NIMBioS’ new REU students begin their first day.
Nineteen of the country’s top undergraduates in mathematics and biology and related fields began their eight-week journey of research and discovery yesterday with NIMBioS’ Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.
Hailing from colleges and universities across the country, the students will live on the UTK campus and work in teams with NIMBioS postdocs and UT faculty on six different research projects, including mathematical modeling of fetal electrocardiograms; modeling animal disease from coronavirus; automatic detection of rare birds from audio recording; modeling the environmental transmission of E-coli in cattle; modeling protein translation and genome evolution; and modeling animal social network dynamics.
NIMBioS postdoc Arik Kershenbaum (right) introduces REU students to the bird song project.
Day 1 began with introductions and an overview of basic modeling approaches. The students also met their mentors who will guide their work over the next eight weeks. Besides the research, trips to the Knoxville zoo and the Great Smoky Mountains to see the synchronous fireflies are planned. The REU culminates in final presentations of their research.