NSF grant to join math, biology students in research projects
Released on 10/05/2005, at 2:00 AM
Office of University Communications
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
A four-year National Science Foundation grant of $710,970 will enable the creation of interdisciplinary teams of select students in mathematics and biology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to conduct research into projects of interest to both fields of study.
The primary investigator on the grant is Glenn Ledder, associate professor in the Department of Mathematics. A fifth year of the grant, pending availability of funds and satisfactory progress, will be for $194,030.
The project will focus on field research and mathematical modeling in ecology and population dynamics. The project will build on progress already made at UNL in creating courses that integrate math and biology subjects.
Courses integrating math and biology subjects already in place, Ledder said, include a new calculus course for biology students. The other new course, Mathematical Methods in Biology and Medicine, is a follow-up course.
Funding for this course is from one of UNL's Initiative for Teaching and Learning Excellence grants that were awarded in March. Existing classes and new ones under development played a large role in obtaining the grant, Ledder said, as did the resources available at the Cedar Point Biological Station, where students will spend time working on their project in summer 2006.
The grant will fund the RUTE (Research for Undergraduates in Theoretical Ecology) Scholars Program. Teams will be comprised of two biology students, two mathematics students and at least one faculty member from each discipline. Math students will have had coursework in biology, genetics and ecology. Biology students will have had coursework in calculus and an advanced field of mathematics.
Teams will go through a research process over three academic semesters and one summer. The first group, which will explore the growth and ecology of turtles at Cedar Point, will start in January. There will be two teams active in following years.
CONTACT: Glenn Ledder, Assoc. Professor, Mathematics, (402) 472-7382