Truman's Mathematical Biology Program sponsors a biweekly seminar series that hosts local and visiting speakers that will talk on topics that fall at or near the intersection of the mathematical and life sciences. All meetings are open to any students, staff, faculty, and community members who are interested in this topic. All meetings are at 3:30pm in Magruder Hall 2007.

The calendar of events for this semester follows.

7 September

An organizational meeting for the seminar. All are welcome to help shape the calendar.

21 September

Prof. Jason Miller (Mathematics) will give an orientation to the Mathematical Biology program at Truman that is appropriate for new students and for all faculty and staff.

5 October

Dr. Matt Schuette, Asst Prof of Mathematics, William Jewell College. Modeling Varicella-Zoster Transmission

19 October

Dr. John Ma, Biology. Gravity Sensing in Plants: How Math & Computer Science Can Help to Solve the Mystery.

2 November

Two research team reports

1. Dr. Dean DeCock (Statistics) and Dr. Jon Gering (Biology) will describe a research project for which they will be soliciting students. This teams will be supported by the program's "Research-focused Learning Communities" grant.
2. Dr. Phil Ryan (Mathematics) and Dr. Laura Fielden (Biology), along with their students Bach Ha (Mathematics & Computer Science) and Matthew Heimann (Biology) will report on the results of their team project concerning tick physiology.

16 November

Amelia Talor (Assistant Professor of Mathematics Colorado College) - From Fish to Polynomials

The amount and types of data available to biologists is booming. In response, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists are collaborating with biologists to develop novel techniques for data analysis. In this talk I will describe a problem from fish evolutionary genetics research and discuss how polynomial ring theory can be used to suggest solutions to a difficult problem.

30 November

Dr. Brad Barbazuk, Assistant Member and Principal Investigator, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Applying the 454 Sequencing System to the Maize Transcriptome.

Spring 2007 Dates

18 January

Two presentations:

1. Phil Ryan - A short report on what he learned at a workshop on creating material for courses in mathematical biology.
2. Amber Johnson - A short report on what she learned at this summer's BioQuest workshop on "Exploring Large Data Sets"

1 February

Dr. Brad Barbazuk, Assistant Member and Principal Investigator, Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. Applying the 454 Sequencing System to the Maize Transcriptome. (Rescheduled from November.)

15 February

Buzz Scherr, Professor of Law, Franklin Pierce Law Center - Human genomics, law, and ethics.

1 March

Dr. Scott Thatcher (Mathematics) and his students George Wang (Mathematics & Computer Science) and Meredith Mertz (Biology) will report on the results of their team project concerning pollen flight dynamics.

22 March

Dr. Peter Rolnick (Physics) will give a presentation on Ginzburg's and Colyvan's theories on accelerated models of population growth.

3 April

Student Research Conference -- many mathematical biology students are presenting

5 April

Dwight Krehbiel (Psychology, Bethel College). “The National Science Digital Library: Finding and Submitting Resources for Teaching, Learning, and Research.” The seminar will meet in the MG 2005 computer lab.

19 April