TY - JOUR
T1 - Student-driven research at the mathematical and theoretical biology institute
AU - Castillo-Chavez, Carlos
AU - Kribs, Christopher
AU - Morin, Benjamin
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. The authors wish to thank all the MTBI faculty, participants, graduate assistants, and the Simon A. Levin MCMSC’s staff, who have made it possible for this program to make a difference over the past 21 years, particularly those who contributed to the projects highlighted in detail in this article: Dr. Leon Arriola, Dr. Eric Baack, Nicolás Crisosto, Dr. Jose D. Flores, Michael Golinski, Beverly González, Dr. David E. Hiebeler, Emilia Huerta-Sánchez, My Huynh, Dr. Michael Johnson, José Leonel Larios-Ferrer, Margaret-Rose Leung, Melissa Marchand, Angela Ortiz-Nieves, Justin Peterson, Dr. Baojun Song, Samantha Stykel, Arturo Vargas, Terannie Vázquez-Alvarez, Dr. Stephen Wirkus. This project has been partially supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (DMS1263374), the National Security Agency (H98230-15-1-0021), the Office of the President of ASU, and the Office of the Provost at ASU.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Mathematical Association of America.
PY - 2017/11/1
Y1 - 2017/11/1
N2 - Highlighting the role of applying mathematics within the life and social sciences through research produced by undergraduate participants of Arizona State University's (ASU) Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute (MTBI), we offer a brief account of what this community has learned from a research model that deliberately relinquishes the scientific agenda to its undergraduate participants. Over the past 21 years MTBI's summer research program has focused on training a diverse population of student researchers in the art of identifying and investigating questions primarily at the interface of the mathematical, life, and social sciences. At the heart of this paper are insights gained from the research leadership of twenty-one cohorts of undergraduate students. We highlight three selected projects that capture MTBI's philosophy of student-driven research, a model that has motivated hundreds of students to enroll in quantitative graduate programs across the nation. The first models collaborative active learning and its role in building robust communities of learners; the second studies the effects of oil spills on the spatial dynamics of loggerhead sea turtles; and the third develops a new, student-created version of pair-approximation modeling which has led to new research and a wide variety of applications.
AB - Highlighting the role of applying mathematics within the life and social sciences through research produced by undergraduate participants of Arizona State University's (ASU) Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute (MTBI), we offer a brief account of what this community has learned from a research model that deliberately relinquishes the scientific agenda to its undergraduate participants. Over the past 21 years MTBI's summer research program has focused on training a diverse population of student researchers in the art of identifying and investigating questions primarily at the interface of the mathematical, life, and social sciences. At the heart of this paper are insights gained from the research leadership of twenty-one cohorts of undergraduate students. We highlight three selected projects that capture MTBI's philosophy of student-driven research, a model that has motivated hundreds of students to enroll in quantitative graduate programs across the nation. The first models collaborative active learning and its role in building robust communities of learners; the second studies the effects of oil spills on the spatial dynamics of loggerhead sea turtles; and the third develops a new, student-created version of pair-approximation modeling which has led to new research and a wide variety of applications.
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U2 - 10.4169/amer.math.monthly.124.9.876
DO - 10.4169/amer.math.monthly.124.9.876
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:85032628343
SN - 0002-9890
VL - 124
SP - 876
EP - 892
JO - American Mathematical Monthly
JF - American Mathematical Monthly
IS - 9
ER -