A National Introductory Colloquium and Undergraduate Research Experience in Mathematical Biology

该计划将为历史黑人学院和大学(HBCU)的学生提供虚拟座谈会，其中包括演讲者与学生之间以及不同HBCU学生之间的强有力的科学讨论和互动。此外，这项提案旨在影响HBCU的学生和教职员工。通过让HBCU教职员工作为合作伙伴参与该项目，目标是为HBCU学生建立通往研究生院的渠道，并建立和加强HBCU教职员工与大型研究机构教职员工之间的工作关系和网络。如果这两个创新想法获得成功，它们将产生广泛的影响。这个研究项目强调数学生物学，但同样的想法也应该适用于纯数学和应用数学的其他分支，以及其他科学学科。通过使虚拟讨论会像课堂一样具有互动性，该项目将为其他研究型大学的教职员工参与和加强HBCU本科生的培训创建一个模板，并本身将为学生和教职员工创建从HBCU到研究机构的管道。然后，这些方法和模板可以被其他数学家或科学家团体使用，以低成本加强其他HBCU学生的培训。该项目有三个目标：鼓励HBCU的本科生进入STEM学科的研究生院学习；将HBCU的分析和数学生物学教师与俄亥俄州立大学(OSU)和其他大型研究机构的教师和研究项目联系起来；在数学领域试验虚拟座谈和虚拟教学技术。六所HBCU的教职员工将每人招募2-3名学生参加为期一年的项目，其中包括在霍华德大学举行的见面会，在那里他们将会见PI和一些演讲者，并听取数学生物学讲座。在整个学年，学生们接受7次介绍性研讨会，演讲者坐在他们的家庭办公室里，数学生物科学研究所(MBI)的宽带设施被用来向六个HBCU同时转播研讨会。MBI设施允许在演讲期间实时提问、回答和讨论。演讲者准备的材料提供后续活动，由当地教职员工指导。这一年以在俄亥俄州立大学举办的为期10天的研讨会结束，这既是学生的研究体验，也是教师的合作活动。对于学生，将有关于学术和非学术工作以及研究生院的小组讨论。在教师研究方面，俄亥俄州立大学的十名数学生物学教员，以及一些演讲者，已经同意在他们当前的研究计划中包括一名HBCU教员。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This program will provide virtual colloquia for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that include robust scientific discussions and interactions between the speaker and the students and between the students at the different HBCUs. Additionally, this proposal aims to impact both the students and the faculty members at HBCUs. By engaging the HBCU faculty members as partners in the project, the goal is to create pipelines for the HBCU students to graduate schools and to establish and enhance working relationships and networking between HBCU faculty members and faculty members at large research institutions. If these two innovative ideas are successful, they will have a broad impact. This research project emphasizes mathematical biology, but the same ideas should work in other branches of pure and applied mathematics, and in other scientific disciplines as well. In making the virtual colloquia as interactive as a classroom, the project will have created a template for faculty at other research universities to participate in and enhance the training of undergraduates at HBCUs, and that, in and of itself, will create pipelines from the HBCUs to the research institutions, both for students and for faculty. The methods and the template could then be used by other groups of mathematicians or scientists to enhance the training of students at the other HBCUs at low cost.The project has three goals: to encourage undergraduate students at the HBCUs to go to graduate school in the STEM disciplines; to connect faculty in analysis and mathematical biology at the HBCUs to faculty and research programs at The Ohio State University (OSU) and other large research institutions; to experiment with virtual colloquia and virtual teaching techniques in mathematics. Faculty members at six HBCUs will each recruit 2-3 students to participate in the year-long program that includes a meet-and-greet workshop at Howard University, where they will meet the PIs and some of the speakers and hear mathematical biology lectures. Through the academic year, the students receive 7 introductory colloquia in which the speakers sit in their home office and the broadband facilities of the Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI) are used to broadcast the colloquium simultaneously to the six HBCUs. The MBI facilities permit questions and answers and discussions in real time during the talk. Materials prepared by the speakers provide follow-up activities that will be mentored by the local faculty members. The year concludes with a 10-day workshop at OSU that will be both a research experience for the students and collaboration events for the faculty. For the students, there will be panel discussions on academic and non-academic jobs and graduate school. For faculty research engagement, ten mathematical biology faculty members at OSU, in addition to some speakers, have agreed to include an HBCU faculty member in their current research program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.