Visiting Scholars
No current scholars scheduled. Check back soon.
Past Scholars
Career Paths in Science - Round Table Luncheon
Featuring: Dr. Rita Colwell
Date: Monday April 14th, 2008 at 12:00pm - DHS 023Dr. Rita Colwell, Distinguished Professor University of Maryland College Park and Johns Hopkins University
Bloomberg School of Public Health; Chairman of Canon US Life Sciences, Inc.
In addition, Ms. Colwell will give a Seminar titled, "Infectious Diseases, Climate, and the Environment" from 3:10-4:30 P.M. in Gallagher Business Building 123.
Oceans, Climate, and Human Health: The Cholera Paradigm
Featuring: Dr. Rita Colwell
Date: Monday, 14 April 2008 at 8:00pm - University TheatreDistinguished Professor University of Maryland College Park and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health Chairman of Canon US Life Sciences, Inc.
In addition, Ms. Colwell will give a Seminar titled, "Infectious Diseases, Climate, and the Environment" from 3:10-4:30 P.M. in Gallagher Business Building 123.
Professor Anatoly Yagola
Department of MathematicsPhysics Faculty, Moscow State University, Russia
November 6th, 8th, 13th, and 15th from 4:00-6:00pm; DHC 023
Professor Yagola is a world-renowned specialist on inverse and ill-posed problems, including the theory, numerical methods, and applications of these problems. Generally speaking, inverse problems are the (mathematical) problems of identifying model parameters from available experimental data. Inverse problems occur in every area of applied research, including biology, ecology, physics, chemistry, etc., where models are constructed to explain the behavior of a system, or to make predictions about future behavior of the system. Professor Yagola is the author of more than 300 scientific publications, including 12 monographs, on topics including inverse and ill-posed problems, mathematical physics, applied mathematics and science education.
In addition to his research, Professor Yagola is involved in activities and organizations that promote science and help make science-related policy decisions. He is a Vice-Chairman of the Council on Mathematics Education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, member of the Coordinating Council on Mathematics and Science Subjects of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation, Member of the Board of Russian Fulbright Alumni Association, and Associate Editor of the journal Inverse Problems in Science and Engineering.
Professor Yagola will be the MEID Scholar in Residence at the University of Montana from November 2 through November 16, 2007. During his visit he will teach a short course on inverse problems.
Course Summary- Introduction. Preliminary examples. Inverse problems in biological sciences.
- Typical models for inverse problems: systems of linear algebraic equations (SLAE), Fredholm integral equations, integral equations of convolution type, inverse problems for coefficients of ordinary and partial differential equations.
- Well-posed and ill-posed mathematical problems.
- SLAE. Basic definitions. Methods for solving: Gauss-Jordan elimination, Choletsky decomposition and others.
- Least squares method. Pseudo-solution and normal pseudo-solution.
- Ill-posed and ill-conditioned problems in linear algebra. Regularization. Singular value decomposition. Elements of linear programming.
- Examples in the biological sciences. Integral equations. Image processing.
- Optimization of medicine therapy regiment.
Why model malaria? Disease dynamics in a changing world.
Featuring: David AlonsoUniversity of Michigan
Malaria is a complex vector-borne disease and a major public health burden in endemic regions of the tropics. Non-endemic regions have shown pronounced patterns of increase in incidence and re-emergence in the past three decades. Despite extensive knowledge accumulated for almost a a century on the biology of both the parasite and the mosquito vector, the reasons for these patterns of exacerbation are not well understood. Climate change, human migrations, and drug resistance are different hypotheses but evaluating these mechanisms from time series data remains elusive. In this talk, by using data from East African highlands, I present ongoing work on a mosquito-human coupled model to start answering some of these questions.
Thursday, 25 October 20074:10 p.m. in Math 103
3:30 p.m. Refreshments in Math Lounge 109
Pathways to Scientific Teaching: Part 1 & 2
Diane Ebert-May
Department of Plant BiologyMichigan State University
Diane Ebert-May is a Professor in the Department of Plant Biology at Michigan State University. She provides national leadership for promoting professional development, evaluation and improvement of faculty, postdoctoral teaching fellows, and graduate students who actively participate in creative research about teaching and learning in the context of their discipline. Her previous work at Northern Arizona University focused on professional development of K-12 teachers and assessment of their students in science. She actively contributes to the educational initiatives of Ecological Society of America, served on the National Research Council (NRC) Committee on Evaluating Undergraduate Teaching, NRC Committee on Integrating Education with Biocomplexity, is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; is on the editorial board of CBE-Life Sciences Education (American Society of Cell Biology), and served a term as advisory board member of the National Academy of Engineering’s Center for the Advancement of Scholarship on Engineering Education, and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC).
Pathways to Scientific Teaching: Part 1 Overview
This seminar is intended for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty who want to learn more about developing and implementing learner-centered instructional materials and teaching strategies for interdisciplinary and introductory science courses. Importantly, the approach of ‘scientific teaching’ is derived directly from the laboratory model of biological research. By integrating the research model into a teaching approach, participants will gain experience in developing materials, instructional methods, and assessments directed at improving and assessing students’ understanding of biological science. Participants will begin by focusing on fundamental scientific concepts underpinning their own research, then:
- Justify why this science is important for undergraduates to learn
- Create learning goals and assessments that enable students to demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of concepts as well as application, analysis and synthesis;
- Develop instructional materials that build on these key concepts;
- Implement the instructional materials in a course using systematically tested, active learning, inquiry-based pedagogy with ongoing feedback;
- Analyze the assessment data; and
- Revise the materials based on knowledge about students’ understanding.
Pathways to Scientific Teaching: Part 2 Overview
Scientific teaching involves actively engaging students in the process of science using instructional methods shown to be effective in helping students learn better than passive lectures. Part II of this seminar is intended to help you develop and prepare to implement your own instructional materials for a course of your choice. By the end of the day on Friday, October 5, you will be able to
Demonstrate understanding of
- Core concepts in scientfic teaching, active learning, assessment, and diversity
- How and why to create learner-centered classrooms
By
- Appling the core concepts of scientific teaching to your own teaching
- Choosing teaching methods based on evidence
- Designing, implementing, and analyzing assessment tools that gauge student learning and teaching
- Using and evaluating instructional resources, technology and literature
You will begin to create
- Teaching materials that address a genuine learning challenge for students and engage students in thinking and behaving like scientists
- A network of scientific teachers at the University of Montana
- A toolbox of ideas, materials and resources for teaching
- A pathway for integrating teaching and research
In the week of August 6 – 10, 2007, as a part of IGERT Scholar in Residence program, Professor Heikki Haario of Finland (Lappeenranta University of Technology and University of Helsinki) will present a short course on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach for estimation of reliability regions for dynamic models parameters identified by fitting model results to data. The topics of major examples addressed in the short course will be familiar to the IGERT students: the model problems statements are going to be taken from core IGERT course Math 414 final projects. However, the treatment of reliability regions estimates for these examples will be somewhat different. The short course will ideally complement the material that the IGERT students acquired during the fall semester of 2006 in the core course Math 414.
Schedule of Hekki Harrio
Professor Harrio will be lecturing each day from 10:00am until 3:00pm. There will be a scheduled lunch break from 12:00pm-1:00pm every day.
Professor Harrio is available for individually scheduled appointments on Monday the 13th and Tuesday the 14th. Please contact Kate Tran at the MEID office to schedule a time to meet 406-243-5670.
