21st Annual Student Research Conference
Team Katydid: The Math-Bio Experience
Nathan V. Whelan
Dr. Jonathan C. Gering and Dr. Dean DeCock, Faculty Mentors
This past summer I participated in Truman State's Mathematical Biology Program which provided me a unique opportunity to gain interdisciplinary research experience. My team consisted of two math majors and one biology major, along with a statistics and a biology professor who provided guidance as needed. We collaborated in an interdisciplinary manner to create a new test statistic for the subdiscipline phylogenetic community ecology. In order to apply the statistic to an actual data set we spent time in the field collecting katydids to use as our test species. When not working, there was an integral social aspect to the program. All the program participants lived in West Campus Suites, and there was rarely a night where we were not playing sports, going to dinner, or enjoying other activities in a seemingly smaller Kirksville. In this presentation I will reflect on my experiences with the Mathematical Biology Program.
Keywords: Math-Bio, phylogenies, test statistics, katydid, summer research
Topic(s):Biology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 30-2
Location: VH 1432
Time: 1:30