Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences

Professor John Milton (Kenan Professor of Computational Neuroscience at the Claremont Colleges) is the PI for a five-year NSF grant of $449,878 for "Research Experiences at the Biological-Mathematical Interface (REBMI)."  Our experience indicates that there are two barriers which severely limit undergraduate students when they come to work on real world problems at the interface between biology and mathematics: 1) limited computer programming skills; and 2) limited mathematical background in topics such as numerical analysis, stochastic processes, delay and partial differential equations, and data mining. These common concerns motivated the formation of the REBMI initiative. With the Co-PIs, Professors Lisette De Pillis (HMC, Math), Greg Dewey (KGI, Systems Biology), Art Lee (CMC, Math/Computer Science), Mario Martelli (CGU, Math), this project will prepare undergraduate students to work on interdisciplinary teams that tackle “translational”, real-life challenges at the crux of biology and mathematics.  The effectiveness of such teams depends not only on the individual expertise of the team members, but also on how well members develop skills related to critical thinking, problem-solving, project management, and effective communication (written and verbal).   In order to expose students to the questions and problems regularly confronted by practicing scientists, our institutional level program takes advantage of two industry sponsored capstone initiatives at The Claremont Colleges, the Mathematics Clinics at CGU and HMC, and the Team Masters Projects (TMP) at KGI. As such, student evaluation criteria will be based primarily on performance, and, in particular, on the performance of student teams to obtain implementable solutions to novel problems. In this way we will be able to identify and train those students who have the ability and desire to become the future leaders of bio-technology in this country.

With NSF support this program brings together an experienced team of educators spanning five institutions in Claremont to combine their resources to re-design a biomathematics curriculum so that topics most relevant for research at the cutting edge between biology and mathematics, e.g. stochastic processes, delay and partial differential equations, numerical analysis, and data mining, can be quickly introduced.  Armed with skills necessary to use computers for data collection and running experiments, students can see for themselves the application of mathematics as a laboratory tool.  During the summer of their junior year, student teams composed of members with varying academic backgrounds engage in mentor-supervised research projects in biology.  Here they learn to use the computer as a meeting point between empirically and quantitatively oriented researchers.  The research questions and problems addressed by student teams in their senior year are typical of those confronted by scientists in biotechnology: the proposed solutions must work in practice and be delivered by a specified deadline. An annual conference is an integral part of this project and serves to provide a venue for student recruitment, the assessment of students, and the evaluation of the program by an external review committee.  This committee is composed of experts from biomathematics, biotechnology, government and industry.  All materials developed by this program will be available on a website to benefit other institutions.

Technology is rapidly making it possible to study biological phenomena on scales ranging from a few molecules to the levels of large populations. Consequently the formation of interdisciplinary teams composed of mathematicians and biologists has become an essential step for translating benchtop research into practical applications that benefit society. The success of such efforts requires that in addition to skills related to their discipline, team members have skills in areas related to critical thinking, problem-solving, project management, productive teamwork, and effective communication (written and oral). This program establishes institutional level curricular changes for the purpose of training students to work at the interface between mathematics and biology. In their junior year qualified students will take a unique two-semester course in biomathematics which has both a laboratory-based and a computer-based component. The mathematical curriculum is designed to quickly introduce those topics most relevant for research at the cutting edge between biology and biotechnology, for example, stochastic processes, delay and partial differential equations, numerical analysis, and data mining. Armed with the skills necessary to use computers for data collection and running experiments, students can see for themselves the application of mathematics as a laboratory tool in a hands-on manner. After completing a summer research experience working with an interdisciplinary team on problems related to basic research in biology (3 months), student teams begin a two-semester research experience on problems that are typical of those regularly confronted by practicing scientists by taking advantage of two well-established company sponsored problems at The Claremont Colleges: 1) the Innovative Clinic program at Harvey Mudd College and 2) the Team Masters Project program at The Keck Graduate Institute. Summative evaluation is based upon a special examination that challenges student teams to obtain practical solutions to open-ended and challenging problems. This test is administered before the students begin their research experience (pre-test) and then on four other occasions (the difficulty of all examinations will be about the same). The formative evaluation contains three components: 1) a student-based evaluation (electronic portfolio, self-administered evaluations, exit questionnaire); 2) a peer-based evaluation (evaluation of team presentation by, for example, experts in biomathematics and biotechnology); and 3) a career-based evaluation, i.e. their performance in the workplace post-graduation as assessed by employment history, publication record, reports from workplace supervisors, and so on. An external review committee composed of experts from biomathematics, biotechnology, government and industry will review the program on a yearly basis. An annual conference is an integral part of this project and serves to provide a venue for student recruitment, the assessment of students, and the evaluation of the program.

The training of undergraduate students to work at the interface between biology and mathematics successfully requires that they are taught the relevant skills and that they have a reasonable expectation of employment at the end of their training. An important aspect of our evaluation of this hypothesis is that the criteria are based primarily on performance and, in particular, on the performance of student teams to obtain implementable solutions to novel problems. We believe that the success of this project would broadly impact undergraduate teaching both at our institutions as well as other institutions in the country.

An educational environment that operates at the interfaces between academic disciplines, industry, and government will be both stimulating to students while at the same time is expected to foster greater collaboration between these different aspects of human activity. Since more than 50% of undergraduate students currently studying biomathematics at The Claremont Colleges, and elsewhere, are female, it is likely that female scientists will soon come to occupy many of the leadership roles in biotechnology in this country. Our efforts will be of interest to educators at other institutions. Thus, we will make all materials used in our program available on a website including problems used for past evaluation examinations together with the best solutions obtained by our student teams, materials related to our biomathematics curriculum, and materials used for the computer and experimental laboratories.