FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

O'Connel, Schill, and Ryan Present at Regional Mathematical Biology Meeting

Team presents results of interdisciplinary research

A research team travels to "The Institute for Mathematical Biology Education and Resources" (TIMBER) to share the results of their work, learn about other mathematical biology programs, and network with others in the field.

Karen O'Connell, Maddie Schill, and Prof. Pam Ryan hard at work during the summer 2006 research program.

Truman State University sent a cross-disciplinary team of two undergradaute research students and member of the mathematics faculty to Boone, North Carolina, to participate in "The Institute for Mathematical Biology Education and Resources" (TIMBER) at Appalachian State University. This institute brought together undergradaute and graduate students from the southeast along with many faculty members intersted in undergraduate education in mathematical biology.

Truman's delegation shared information about Truman's mathematical biology program, and also shared the results of their team's research during the summer of 2006. Maddie Schill (mathematics, '08) and Karen O'Connell (biology, '08) gave an invited presentation titled "Phylogeography of the Envelope Protein of the Dengue-2 virus (Flaviviridae) throughout Latin America". Their talk described the work they did last summer as part of Truman's Summer Undergraduate Research Experiences program. Their research project was a collaboration with both Prof. Pam Ryan (mathematics) and Prof. Anton Weisstein (biology), and it was supported by Truman's The Next STEP Office and a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF DUE #431664.)

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