Gavrilets Elected Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

Sergey Gavrilets
NIMBioS Associate Director for Scientific Activities

Congratulations are in order for NIMBioS’ own Sergey Gavrilets who has been elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

He is one of 228 national and international scholars, artists, philanthropists, and business leaders in the class of 2017 of the prestigious organization, which, since its founding in 1780, has been one of this country’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers. Gavrilets and the other new members will be formally inducted at a ceremony to be held next October in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“It is an honor to welcome this new class of exceptional men and women as part of our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, chair of the Academy’s board of directors. “Their talents and expertise will enrich the life of the Academy and strengthen our capacity to spread knowledge and understanding in service to the nation.”

Members of the new class include winners of the Pulitzer Prize, MacArthur “genius award” recipients, Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Arts recipients, and winners of the Academy, Grammy, Emmy, and Tony Awards.

Gavrilets, distinguished professor in UT’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and the Department of Mathematics, follows in the footsteps of historical greats such as Benjamin Franklin, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Mead, and Nelson Mandela, who were all notable members of the academy.

The academy’s purpose is “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.”

“I view this as a recognition of the success of our mathematical biology program started by Tom Hallam and Lou Gross 35 years ago,” Gavrilets said. “This later led to the establishment of NIMBioS as a national and international hub for transdisciplinary research and the coordinated hiring of multiple bright junior faculty in several UT departments working at the interface of biology, mathematics, computational, and social sciences.”

Gavrilets’ research focuses on population genetics, adaptation, speciation, coevolution, diversification, phenotypic plasticity, and sexual conflict. Gavrilets has researched human origins, human uniqueness, human social and cultural evolution, within- and between-group conflict, and cooperation.

 

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NIMBioS-UT Partner to Help Students With Disabilities

Posted on April 11, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

NIMBioS and UT have partnered to create a new organization on campus — the STEM Alliance — which aims to improve the success of students with disabilities in the STEM disciplines.

The STEM Alliance is part of the South East Alliance for Persons with Disabilities in STEM (SEAPD-STEM) program, a network of education institutions in the southeastern US and Washington, DC with a goal to significantly advance a collaborative approach to improve the success of students with disabilities in the STEM disciplines.

The UT-NIMBioS STEM Alliance provides scholarship funds to its students and also holds regular meetings throughout the semester on professional development topics, such as careers, resume writing, mentorship, graduate schools and internships. The group also holds informal gatherings to share ideas and provide support. New students are accepted each semester.

The goals of SEAPD-STEM are:

  1. Increase the quality and quantity of persons with disabilities completing associate, undergraduate, and graduate degrees in STEM disciplines and entering the STEM workforce, especially among minorities, veterans, and women.
  2. Increase the quality and quantity of post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty with disabilities in STEM fields.
  3. Improve academic performance of students with disabilities in secondary level science and mathematics courses.
  4. Enhance communication and collaboration among post-secondary institutions, industry, government, national labs, and community in addressing the education of students with disabilities in STEM discipline.
  5. Assess our activities to understand what works to support the matriculation and retention of STEM students with disabilities in science followed by broad dissemination through workshops, conference presentations, webinars, and peer-reviewed publications.

SEAPD-STEM is funded by the National Science Foundation’s INCLUDES (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science) program, a comprehensive national initiative designed to enhance U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) discoveries and innovations focused on NSF’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and broadening participation in these fields.

SEAPD-STEM builds on the success of the Alabama Alliance for Students with Disabilities in STEM (AASD-STEM), an NSF-funded collaboration between Auburn University, Auburn University Montgomery, Alabama State University, Tuskegee University, and Southern Union State Community College. Over the past seven years, AASD-STEM has provided academic and social support for over 200 students with disabilities in STEM majors through peer and faculty mentoring, research internships, group meetings, annual conferences, and student support organizations. SEAPD-STEM increases the reach of AASD-STEM by adding an additional 16 institutions to the program, for a total of 21 participating colleges and universities in six states and Washington, D.C.

Since it was established in 2008, NIMBioS has been a leader in promoting diversity in all its activities. Diversity is considered in all its aspects, social and scientific, including gender, ethnicity, scientific field, career stage, geography and type of home institution. You can learn more about NIMBioS diversity programs and initiatives at its STEM Diversity Enhancement web page at https://legacy.nimbios.org/education/diversity

For more information about the UT-NIMBioS program and how to apply, visit the web page at https://legacy.nimbios.org/education/stem

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New Roster of Summer Undergrads Announced

Posted on March 29, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

Five interesting projects ready for researchers in this summer’s SRE program

NIMBioS is pleased to announce the 17 participants selected for its highly competitive 2017 Summer Research Experience (SRE) program. The participants, which this year include one middle school math teacher, were selected from a pool of more than 100 applicants. The program runs for eight weeks, from June 5-July 28. Participants will come to NIMBioS on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, campus to work in teams with NIMBioS postdocs and UT faculty on research at the interface of mathematics and biology.

2017 SRE participants and their assigned team projects are as follows:

Sharee Brewer (Biology and Math, Fisk Univ.); Kimberly Dautel (Applied Mathematics, Marist College); Brian Lerch (Biology, Case Western Reserve Univ.) and Alan Liang (Math and Computer Science, Cornell Univ.) will team up on a project to build a model to investigate mating patterns in birds’ evolution.

Axel Hranov (Computer Science, Univ. of Tennessee); Audrey Hommes (Mathematics, Vanderbilt Univ.); and Saroj Duwal (Computer Science, Univ. of New Orleans) will work on a project to develop computer games for teaching biology.

Alison Adams (Genetics and Applied Mathematics, Univ. of Georgia, Athens); Quiyana Murphy (Math and Psychology, Univ. of Kentucky); and Owen Dougherty (Biology with Microbiology, Univ. of Tennessee) will work on a project to model the immune system in host-virus conflict.

Brian Hardison (7th and 8th grade math, Pi Beta Phi Elementary School, Gatlinburg, TN); Patrick Wise (Biology and History, Univ. of Delaware); Maitraya Ghatak (Mathematics, Univ. of Tennessee); and Javier Urcuyo (Applied Math and Biology, Arizona State Univ.) will team up on a project to model the spread of La Crosse encephalitis virus in East Tennessee.

Tanay Wakhare (Math and Computer Science, Univ. of Maryland, College Park); David Nguyen (Biology, Eastern Washington Univ.); and Lara Weaver (Mathematics, Univ. of Tennessee) will work on a project to examine disease-independent seasonal patterns and pathogen dynamics in multi-host systems.

 

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New Ideas Incubating at NIMBioS

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

Incubator Roundtable participants at NIMBioS

NIMBioS hosted its first ever Synthesis Incubator on the theme of “Emerging Risks, Measured Responses” last week, which brought together researchers and various local, state and federal stakeholders to discuss topics and generate ideas for collaboration.

Through roundtable discussions and an evening of networking, participants addressed a diverse set of problems representing “emerging risks” with goals to forge new collaborative networks and new paths to “measured responses. ”

Roundtable discussions covered topics related to preparing students to use math in analyzing emerging risks, building adaptive capacity into conservation and natural resource management, identifying issues that can be addressed with spatially explicit datasets, and addressing current problems in host-pathogen interactions.

The day concluded with networking over hors d’oeuvres and music, dinner and a keynote address from James LeDuc, director of the Galveston National Laboratory, University of Texas Medical Branch. The evening social activities were held at the Foundry in Knoxville.

Check out our photo album on Flickr below.

For the full program including list of participants, visit https://legacy.nimbios.org/incubator/

Incubator 2017

 

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Blackwell-Tapia Conference Makes the Grade

Posted on March 9, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

Conference attendees and award recipient Mariel Vazquez (center)

The final report of the ninth annual Blackwell-Tapia Conference and Award Ceremony, held Oct. 28-29, is out and feedback from the participant feedback shows that by all measures the conference was a success.

NIMBioS was the lead organizing institute, along with the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) as co-organizing institute. The NSF Mathematical Sciences Institutes Diversity Committee hosted the event, which was held at NIMBioS and at the University of Tennessee Conference Center.

The conference was sponsored in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. According to the final evaluation report, the grant’s goal to support the conference in providing early-career minority mathematicians with enhanced understanding of their field, networking with peers, and interactions with senior researchers was achieved.

More than 100 participants attended the conference. Most participants represented a variety of researchers across different career stages with the majority of participants at early career stages.

According to the evaluation report, 100% of survey respondents found the overall quality of the conference, banquet, award presentation, and networking opportunities to be good or better.

“It was such a positive environment,” said one postdoc participant. “I saw many minorities who [are] role models. That gave me more hope in the sense that it made me realize
that probably I would be able to continue my growth as a mathematician.”

The bi-annual conference was established in 2000, honoring David Blackwell and Richard Tapia for their inspiration of AfricanAmerican, Native American, and Latino/Latina students to pursue careers in mathematics. This year’s prize was awarded to Dr. Mariel Vazquez, a mathematics professor at the University of California, Davis.

The final evaluation report, which summarizes the conference’s success in relation to associated metrics provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, includes participant survey results, participant demographic information, a report assessing long-term effects of the conference, and much more.

Links to videos of the conference presentations, blog posts about the conference, and other conference details can be found on the conference web page.

The conference photo album can be found on the NIMBioS Flickr page.

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Science Pub for Postdoc Martin

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

Former postdoc Ryan Martin

Research on adaptation and climate change by Ryan Martin while a postdoc at NIMBioS appears this month in Science.

“Precipitation drives global variation in natural selection” quantifies how climate variation influences selection. With plant and animal data from multiple terrestrial biomes, temperature explained little variation, but precipitation and water evaporation, along with the North Atlantic Oscillation pressure system, predicted variation across the plant and animal populations. The results provide evidence that local and global climate cycles are likely important drivers of natural selection in the wild.

The research originated from a working group at the former National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in which Martin participated as a NIMBioS postdoc.

Martin was a NIMBioS postdoc from September 2012 – December 2013. Upon completing his NIMBioS fellowship, Martin accepted a faculty position in the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University where he continues today.

Citation: Siepielski AM et al. 2017. Precipitation drives global variation in natural selection. Science 355:959-62. 

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Discover Birds En Español

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

NIMBioS Deputy Director Chris Welsh at a Discover Birds visit to Sevierville Primary second graders in 2013. Photo Credit: discoverbirds.blogspot.com

The popular Discover Birds Activity Book for kids in which NIMBioS contributed some math content has now been translated into Spanish and has even reached Cuban shores.

In the book, Campeones de Aves, “Bird Champions,” is a simple math puzzle where kids solve arithmetic to break a code to learn about the fastest, smallest, largest, and tallest North American birds as well as the migrant with the greatest annual mileage in the world. In Cambiando Poblaciones, “Changing Populations,” children use real bird breeding data to explore how populations of Eastern Bluebird, Northern Bobwhite, and Wild Turkey have changed in Tennessee over time. NIMBioS’ contributions to the book, including answer keys, are available for download in both Spanish and English on our website at https://legacy.nimbios.org/education/discoverbirds

The book was a true NIMBioS team effort. Deputy Director Chris Welsh and Education & Outreach Coordinator Kelly Sturner designed and wrote the activities. Business Manager Toby Koosman helped edit and revise the Spanish language translation for the science-related content throughout the book.

Sponsored by the Tennessee Ornithological Society and written and illustrated by Vickie Henderson, the thirty-six page book, expanded and updated in 2013, includes lively illustrations and focuses on fun facts about birds, from what makes a bird a bird to how ornithologists study bird populations. The book is targeted at the third grade level and is appropriate for first to sixth graders.

The printing of the Spanish translation was made possible through a donation from the tour outfit Naturalist Journeys. Henderson took the Spanish translation of the activity books to share with school children in Cuba earlier this year. The English version of the book was first taken to Cuba in 2014. Naturalist Journeys will be taking the books to other Spanish speaking countries throughout 2017.

The book has been used widely in East Tennessee classrooms through the Discover Birds Program with the Knoxville Chapter of the Tennessee Ornithological Society. A free copy of the book is available for download at the Discover Birds Program web page.

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Congrats to Professor Lenhart!

Posted on February 22, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

Suzanne Lenhart
Associate Director for Education and Outreach

Congratulations to Suzanne Lenhart, NIMBioS Associate Director for Education and Outreach and UT professor of mathematics, who has been nominated for the Southeastern Conference Professor of the Year award. The prestigious, university-level award recognizes those with outstanding records in both teaching and scholarship who serve as role models for junior faculty and students.

The award was established in 2010 by the Southeastern Conference Presidents and Chancellors.  There is one winner/nominee per campus and one overall winner for the Conference. All receive an honorarium and memento from the SEC. The top recipient, the SEC Professor of the Year, is honored during the annual SEC Awards Dinner in Destin, Florida, and recognized in conjunction with the SEC Symposium in Atlanta, Georgia.

To qualify for the award, an individual’s scholarly contribution or discoveries must be such that the faculty member has been acknowledged by colleagues within the discipline nationally or internationally.

The SEC Provosts comprise the selection committee charged with choosing the SEC Professor of the Year from among the SEC Faculty Achievement Award winners selected by each university.

The SEC Faculty Achievement Awards are one program included in the SECU academic initiative. SECU is the specific way the Southeastern Conference actively sponsors, supports and promotes collaborative higher education programs and activities involving administrators, faculty and students at its fourteen member universities. The goals of the SECU initiative include highlighting the endeavors and achievements of SEC faculty and universities; advancing the merit and reputation of SEC universities outside of the traditional SEC region; identifying and preparing future leaders for high-level service in academia; increasing the amount and type of education abroad opportunities available to SEC students; and providing opportunities for collaboration among SEC university personnel.

More information about the award is available at http://www.thesecu.com/programs/sec-faculty-achievement-awards/

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NIMBioS Parades for Science!

Posted on February 20, 2017 by admin

Darwin Day parade participants pose afterward for a group photo.

In celebration of Darwin Day, NIMBioS joined UT’s Darwin Day Tennessee organization to parade for science! Chanting “Science for the people!” and “What do we want? Science! When do we want it? After peer review!” a group of undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and postdocs from across campus came together last week to form a jubilant parade celebrating science. The parade began in front of Ayers Hall, circled around the Hill, and ended in front of the student union. Special guest and birthday honoree, Charles Darwin, in the form of a giant puppet, joined the parade. The parade was the first of a week-long series of events including lectures, tabling, and a teacher workshop on the theme of evolution.

NIMBioS’ Lauren Smith-Ramesh (L) and Suzanne Lenhart (middle) carry the NIMBioS banner. UT graduate student Sarah Sheffield represents geology (right).

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Optimal Control Paper Highly Sought

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Catherine Crawley

The final meeting of the Working Group in January 2014 (L to R): Paula Federico, Suzanne Lenhart, Rene Salinas, Scott Christley, Matt Oremland, Andrew Kanarek (via Skype), Rachel Miller Neilan, Reinhard Laubenbacher, Jie Xiong, Ben Fitzpatrick, David Gurarie. Not pictured: Gary An.

The NIMBioS Working Group Optimal Control for Agent-based Models has been busy blazing a trail: its perspective paper  on agent-based models in biology published last fall in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology has been downloaded 500 times.

“Optimization and Control of Agent-Based Models in Biology: A Perspective” proposes a new approach to optimization and control and outlines steps and specific techniques.

The Working Group, which met four times from 2011 to 2014, was co-organized by Gary An, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine; Reinhard Laubenbacher, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute; and Suzanne Lenhart and Jie Xiong, both from the Department of Mathematics, University of Tennessee. The group submitted a proposal to form a Working Group following  a workshop at NIMBioS in December 2009.

NIMBioS Working Groups are chosen to focus on major scientific questions at the interface between biology and mathematics. The groups comprise up to 10 participants, focus on a well-defined topic, and have well-defined goals and metrics of success. Working Groups typically meet up to three times over a two-year period.

The next deadline to request support for a Working Group is March 1. For more information about Working Groups and how to apply for support, visit https://legacy.nimbios.org/workinggroups/

Citation: An G et al. 2016. Optimization and control of agent-based models in biology: A perspective. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. doi:10.1007/s11538-016-0225-6

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