NIMBioS Among the Big Trees

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin

From left to right: Kelly Sturner, NIMBioS Education & Outreach Coordinator; Andrea Pugliese, Trento Univ.; Tony Jhwueng, Feng Chia Univ.; Louis Gross, NIMBioS Director

NIMBioS hit the trail to Albright Grove in Great Smoky Mountains National Park last weekend. The grove is an excellent example of old-growth cove hardwood forest, and includes giant hemlocks and tulip trees. Hikers included a Andrea Pugliese from Trento University, a participant in the investigative workshop Modeling Dengue Fever, as well as short term visitor and former NIMBioS postdoc Tony Jhwueng from Feng Chia University. Visitors to NIMBioS are encouraged to take advantage of our close proximity to the “Smokies,” and all the opportunities for recreation (and collaboration) it provides.

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All Activities Continue as NIMBioS Recovers from Flood

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin

NIMBioS IT Manager Michael Peek surveys some of the damage on Friday morning.

NIMBioS postdoc Tucker Gilman adapts to the soggy conditions.

With a few inconveniences, operations at NIMBioS are continuing normally in the aftermath of last week’s flooding. A fast and heavy downpour on Thursday night, July 19, along with nearby construction that may have disrupted drainage, caused the flooding of several offices, two conference rooms, a hallway, and a breakroom at NIMBioS’ new location in the heart of the University of Tennessee’s campus.

Several post-doctoral researchers, REU students, and short-term visitors have  temporarily moved their offices. NIMBioS servers were safely elevated off the ground and experienced no disruptions.

Workshops and activities surrounding the Society for Mathematical Biology annual meeting and conference scheduled later this week are continuing as planned.

On Friday and over the weekend, clean up and repairs began with removal of saturated carpets and damaged drywall. Many large fans and dehumifiers have been brought in to dry out the affected areas. The clean-up and repairs are expected to take about two weeks, but overall NIMBioS has weathered the storm.

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Simberloff Wins World’s Top Prize for Ecology

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Catherine Crawley

Dr. Dan Simberloff

Congratulations to UT professor and NIMBioS-affiliated researcher Dan Simberloff who has received the world’s pre-eminent prize for ecology and environmental science, the 2012 Ramon Margalef Award for Ecology.

The award is presented annually by the Catalonian government in Spain, “to recognize an exceptional scientific career or discovery in the field of ecological science.” Simberloff is the Gore-Hunger Professor of Environmental Studies in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Simberloff, who in May became UT’s third faculty member in history to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, is being honored for “his contributions to the observation and theoretical analysis of the structure and dynamics of ecological communities, and for the application of these studies to conservation biology.”

At NIMBioS, Simberloff participated in the NIMBioS Working Group: Biological Problems Using Binary Matrices and has served as a mentor to several postdoctoral fellows.

For more information about the award and Simberloff’s career contributions, click here.

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REU’s Present in UT STEM REU Symposium

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin

(Left to right) Sarah Collier, University of Dayton; Olatomiwa Lasebikan, Fisk University; Yanjie Liu, University of Tennessee-Knoxville

Students from NIMBioS’ Research Experience for Underdergraduates (REU) joined undergraduates from colleges and universities all over the country to present their original research in a poster symposium last week in the University of Tennessee’s (UT) Baker Center Toyota Auditorium. The UT community and members of the public also attended the symposium.

Three UT research centers partnered in this shared UT STEM Symposium for their REU programs — their first such cooperation. Presenters also included participants in a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) and Young Scholars program for high school students. In all, more than 50 student and teacher researchers from CURENT, NIMBioS, and TN-SCORE  featured 33 research and education posters in a showcase of great student and teacher research happening on campus this summer in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).  Presentation topics ranged from the development of natural pesticides to the use of modeling to understand waves occurring in the power grid.

All 18 of this year’s NIMBioS REU students participated, sharing six project posters. In addition, a poster was presented by two area high school students who have been working on a project advised by NIMBioS postdoctoral researcher Tucker Gilman.

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NIMBioS Represents at Evolution 2012

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Catherine Crawley

NIMBioS researchers join DJ Jamie Simmonds (second from left) and Baba Brinkman (third from left) at Evolution 2012. Brinkman premiered the NIMBioS-sponsored song, Mad Scientist (Talkin’ Nerdy), at the conference.

Current and former NIMBioS researchers gathered in Ottawa last week for the Evolution 2012 conference. It was the first joint congress on evolutionary biology bringing together five professional societies: American Society of Naturalists, Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, European Society for Evolutionary Biology, Society for the Study of Evolution and Society of Systematic Biologists. Erol Akçay (former postdoc), Mauricio González-Forero (graduate assistant), Maud Lélu (postdoc), and Xavier Thibert-Plante (postdoc) presented their recent results in well-attended sessions. In addition, former NIMBioS Songwriter-in-Residence Baba Brinkman presented his famous Rap Guide to Evolution and gave the world premier performance of the NIMBioS-sponsored song, Mad Scientist (Talkin’ Nerdy).

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This Week @ NIMBioS: Helping the Dairy Cow

Posted on June 27, 2012 by Catherine Crawley

Dairy cows, and other ruminants, are the focus of a new Working Group meeting this week at NIMBioS. The “Within-host modeling of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) infections” Working Group focuses on the bacterial pathogen MAP, which causes an intestinal infection in ruminants leading to Johne’s disease (JD). JD causes reduction of milk production, weight loss, and premature culling of clinically affected animals. In the U.S., JD has been found in 68 percent of dairy herds and causes an estimated annual loss of $200 million to the U.S. dairy industry. Despite long and intensive national-level efforts for JD control, the world is still far from preventing the significant economic impact of this formidable disease. The MAP Working Group has taken up the challenge and is working to develop a within-host MAP infection model, using observational data on infection patterns and within-host immune response data. The ultimate goal of the model is to provide an understanding of progression of disease in response to MAP infection and to devise better mitigation strategies for JD.

One MAP Working Group member is Gesham Magombedze, a postdoctoral fellow at NIMBioS, specifically working on the problem of MAP. In this video, Dr. Magombedze discusses his research.

If you are interested in seeking support for your research, NIMBioS is now taking applications for support of new Working Groups, Investigative Workshops, Postdoctoral Fellowships, and Sabbatical Visits. The application deadline is Sept. 1, 2012. Click here for more information.

 

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Girls Compare Insect Biodiversity in Smoky Mountain Grasslands

Posted on June 15, 2012 by admin

Girls in Science campers at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont crunch the numbers to figure out biodiversity.

NIMBioS visited the Great Smoky Mountain Institute at Tremont today to help participants in Girls in Science Camp explore insect biodiversity data. The 21 young ecologists — all middle school-aged girls from North Carolina and Tennessee — had collected various insect data from the Smokies. NIMBioS then led them in an activity to use Simpson’s Index of Biodiversity to compare data from cool and warm-season grasslands in Cades Cove. The girls found the results were a little too close to call: a slightly higher index was found in the cool season grassland, but the potential effects of time of day, time of year, collection techniques, and so on were discussed as areas of introduced bias.

An education module on how to measure biodiversity using Simpson’s Index is available on the NIMBioS website, along with several other modules that connect biology and mathematics.

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‘Better Science Communication Through Hip-Hop’

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Catherine Crawley

Canadian rap artist Baba Brinkman riffed on mathematical biology this spring as NIMBioS Songwriter-in-Residence. In this interview, Baba talks about what it’s like to be the bard of modern biology as resident songwriter at NIMBioS. The video also includes clips from his excerpted performance at the University of Tennessee of his award-winning Rap Guide to Evolution, co-sponsored by NIMBioS and UT’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. To listen to the song in its entirety, visit the NIMBioS songwriter webpage. The track will be the lead single on Baba’s forthcoming “Informatic EP.” More tracks for NIMBioS are in the works. Baba has been busy since leaving NIMBioS. Just released is Baba’s newest Rap Guide to Evolution music video, “Artificial Selection,” the final in a series of ten produced with support from the UK’s Wellcome Trust. Later this week, Baba will share a stage with Stephen Hawking as a part of the Luminaries Series at the Seattle Science Festival.

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Middle School Girls Interview Scientists, Mathematicians at STEM Camp

Posted on June 13, 2012 by admin

NIMBioS postdoctoral fellow Maud Lélu answers questions from middle school girls about her career.

Middle school girls work on a project at STEM camp.

NIMBioS postdoctoral fellows, faculty and UTK graduate students answered questions from middle school girls about their lives as female biologists and mathematicians at the Adventures in STEM day camp, held last week on the University of Tennessee (UT) campus. Co-hosted by NIMBioS and CURENT at UT, the 27 girls worked on a variety of fun projects and activities to explore the various STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Activities culminated in a “poster session” where the girls shared what they had learned with their families. The week was geared toward expanding girls’ interests in engineering, math and biology and raising their awareness of careers in the STEM fields.

NIMBioS had a lot of help in carrying out the event this week. In addition to co-hosting the event with CURENT, which led morning activities, many volunteers contributed to the afternoon activities, which were led by NIMBioS. From NIMBioS, postdocs J.J. Chai and Maud Lélu, and Graduate Research Assistants Mauricio Gonzalez-Forero and Adam Sullivan all leant a hand from making themselves available for interviews to helping the girls with their activities. UT Ecology and Evolutionary Biology graduate students Jessica Bryant and Emily Austin volunteered to be interviewed, and UT mathematics graduate students Jillian Trask and Sara Abdelmageed also volunteered.  Susan Riechert, UT Professor Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and creator of Biology in a Box, led a black box activity with J.R. Jones, Biology in a Box production manager.

The camp was also featured in a news story on local television station WBIR. For more information about NIMBioS education and outreach programs, click here. For more information about the Adventures in STEM camp, click here.

Adventures in STEM campers pose for a silly picture with NIMBioS graduate research assistant Adam Sullivan (back left), NIMBioS Education and Outreach Coordinator (left, white shirt) and NIMBioS Associate Director for Education, Outreach & Diversity Suzanne Lenhart (middle, yellow shirt).

 

 

 

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NIMBioS Welcomes New REU Class

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Catherine Crawley

The 2012 REU gets underway.

A talented group of eighteen undergraduates arrived at NIMBioS this morning to begin their eight-week immersion at the interface of mathematics and biology in the 2012 NIMBioS Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) . Now in its fourth year, this highly competitive program provides real-world research experience for its participants who live on the UTK campus and team up with NIMBioS postdocs and UT faculty to conduct research. The 2012 projects cover topics ranging from evolution to viruses. The program, which runs from from June 11-August 3 this year, also includes a variety of extra-curricular activities and outings, as well as a generous stipend, housing and some funding to support travel. The NIMBioS REU webpage contains links to a video featuring past REU participants, participant profiles, and more. For a listing of this year’s participants and their institutions, click here.

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