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fall 2014 / 25
FEATURES
Advancingknowledge through
researchand collaboration
When Dr. Anne Yust, assistant
professor of mathematics, set out to
do a collaborate project, she made it
really collaborative.
Not only does Yust work with BSC
students through a rise3 research
project—she shares the project with
a colleague at Rhodes College and
with students there, too.
The research focuses on using
applied mathematics to model and
analyze population dynamics. Each
year, the team chooses a topic, reads
dozens of scientific papers about it,
draws data from them, programs a
computer model, and then interprets
the results. Last year, they looked
at an endangered fox species on the
Channel Islands in California; this
time around, they are calculating
the effects of climate change on
2
yellow-bellied marmots (a large
rodent similar to a groundhog) in
Colorado.
She and sophomore Adam
Pratt, a Harrison Honors Scholar
and mathematics major from
Homewood, did much of the
initial research this summer and
are sharing their results this fall at
the Biomathematics and Ecology:
Education and Research conference
in Claremont, Calif.
“This gives them the experience of
what academia is like at the national
level,” Yust said. “They not only get
the experience of presenting their
work in that setting, they also get
a chance to hear what work other
people are doing, including graduate
students and faculty at other
schools.”
They get to see Yust and her
colleague work through (and
sometimes discard) ideas in regular
team meetings throughout the year,
and they’ll submit their research
to a peer-reviewed journal—both
important precursors of graduate
school. But they’re also learning
skills that will serve them in any
profession, especially the ability to
work independently, Yust said.
“They have to participate in a
meeting, take away information
from that meeting, implement it,
and be able to report on what they
did,” Yust said. “They also have
to be able to motivate and drive
themselves. They often do even
more than expected. To be honest,
I’ve been really impressed by what
our students can do.”