A new paper in @plos.org Complex Systems from my time at @nimbios.bsky.social with Nina Fefferman. We set out some ways of classifying rules for social learning and knowledge exchange in higher-order networks. doi.org/10.1371/jour...

A typology of rules for knowledge exchange in higher-order interactions

Author summary Learning from each other is important to humans and other animals as it provides safe or quick ways to gather information about the world around you. Because of this ‘social learning’, ...

doi.org

We're Streamlining Our Social Media 💡

We’re excited to welcome Brian O’Meara as interim director of NIMBioS and we thank Nina Fefferman for her impactful leadership. As we plan for the future, we welcome your ideas at contact@nimbios.org. Full announcement here: www.nimbios.org/nimbios-welc...

NIMBioS, @nsfappexcenter.bsky.social, and the UT Math Department are co-hosting a talk at UT by Vishwanath Varma from the Max Planck Institute. Join us on Monday, July 14 at 3 PM (4th floor, Ayres Hall)!

Join us this August at the 2025 ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining for "CausalBench: Streamlining Causal Learning Research", the 2nd NSF APPEX Tutorial! ⭐ Please stay tuned. Details to be announced soon!

Can you believe we’re already halfway through 2025? Time really does fly when we’re having fun, especially when we’re discussing mathematical biology and modeling through our Morsels from Numbers and Nature series! ⭐ Interested in presenting? Keep reading! 👇

We're excited to share that the National Institute for Modeling Biological Systems (NIMBioS) is once again hosting the 2025 EDGE Summer Program this June! We’re honored to host this impactful program and look forward to a summer filled with learning and connection.

We are excited to spotlight a recent publication by Dr. Nina Fefferman and Dr. Maggie Sullens titled "Budget Allocation and Illegal Fishing: A Game Theoretic Approach." Congratulations on this wonderful contribution to the field of conservation science! aimspress.com/article/doi/...

Dr. David Talmy, NIMBioS Affiliate and Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Tennessee, is leading an exciting project to explore the role of viruses in ocean food webs! @dtalmy.bsky.social

Why This Research Matters 🌍💡 Plankton may be small, but they are the backbone of marine ecosystems! Dr. Christopher Strickland and his team are working to better understand how plankton interact with filter feeders like corals and jellyfish.

We're excited to highlight another project here at NIMBioS — Dr. Maggie Sullens’ dissertation chapter, which explores how the collapse of a local fishing industry impacts the mental health of the community that depends on it. Learn more: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

STEM grad students: Apply your skills to real-world pandemic research this summer with NSF APPEX! Remote, paid, multidisciplinary internship. Modeling, AI, public health & more. 🔗 appex.org/openpositions/

Dr. Strickland and his team are developing models to better understand plankton behavior and their interactions with marine filter feeders like corals and jellyfish. The work sheds light on ocean ecosystems and reef conservation. The team recently conducted field research in Key Largo. Stay tuned!

This is a cassiopea (upside-down jellyfish). Here you can see it going for a swim before settling back down to its upside-down position on the floor. Our NSF project combines math and science to study how filter feeders use the water around them to capture prey! I took this video earlier this week.

Ever wonder what a mangrove forest looks like underwater? Check it out! It's remarkably beautiful and a bit weird... I took this footage during our research meeting on March 16 where we are discussing ways to apply mathematical methods to better understand the fluid dynamics of filter feeders!

On the intersection of math and science: understanding how different filter feeders geometries (e.g. seafans) have adapted to their environment in the ocean! The left image is from our dive two days ago.

🎉 Happy Pi Day from the European Mathematical Society! Today, we celebrate π (Pi) – a number that appears everywhere, from geometry to physics! How many digits can you recall?

We are excited to invite Dr. Cara Sulyok, along with her students Priscilla Doran, Natsuka Hayashida, Kristen Joyner, and Grace Moberg, for our March Morsel. This research was conducted as part of the 2024 Summer@ICERM Program at Brown University!

Rocky is our high-performance computing cluster designed to handle complex, compute-heavy, and big data projects for quantitative life sciences. With specialized nodes, robust storage, and virtual hosting capabilities, Rocky helps streamline research and makes computational studies more accessible.

Since the spring of 2021, NIMBioS has secured over $8.5 million in new funding, building on the many ongoing multi-year projects already funded before 2021. This impressive growth does not include the $18 million brought in by @nsfappexcenter.bsky.social, our sister institute!

Dr. Olivia (Prosper) Feldman, NIMBioS Affiliate & UTK Math Associate Professor, has been named the 2025 Etta Z. Falconer Lecturer by the Association for Women in Mathematics & the MAA for her work in mathematical epidemiology, mentoring, & broadening math participation. Congrats! 🎉

Are you a primate researcher? Please consider contributing to our research survey! Add your knowledge of direct, indirect, or absent human-primate interactions at sites you have visited. Just 15 minutes of your time!

Human-Nonhuman Primate Interactions

This survey has been designed to collect information on the diversity of emergent and shared histories of human-nonhuman primate (NHP) interactions, at sites that responding primate researchers freque...

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Join us tomorrow, on February 20 at 2 PM EST for "The Gravitational Theory of the Midges," a presentation by Dan Gorbonos, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

Save the Date! The NSF APPEX Inaugural meeting is happening in Knoxville, Tennessee on April 26–27, 2025 (Saturday & Sunday). 📅 Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more details!

We are happy to announce that NIMBioS is now on Bluesky! We’re excited to reach a new audience in the mathematical biology community. We invite you to follow along and collaborate with us. Stay tuned for updates on research, events, and more! #MathBio #MathematicalBiology #BlueskyScience

We’re excited to share some amazing news! Our Morsels from Numbers and Nature YouTube videos are averaging 77 views each! It wouldn’t be possible without your support. Stay tuned for our February Morsel on the 20th featuring a speaker from Germany! www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

NSF APPEX invites Seed Ideas for new Working Groups to tackle pandemic risk & response. Have a bold idea to study pandemic expansion? We want to work with you! Learn more: appex.org/seed/

We are happy to announce that NSF APPEX is now on Bluesky! We’re excited to reach a new audience in the pandemic science community. We invite you to follow along and work with us as we explore solutions to global health challenges. #PandemicScience #PublicHealth #BlueskyScience

This January, APPEX will open our first call for seed ideas around which to form new Working Groups. Stay tuned for more info coming soon! Learn more: appex.org/news/

We're excited to announce that NIMBioS affiliate Dr. Christopher Strickland will present "A Mathematics-Based Approach to Opioid Epidemiology in Tennessee" at the UT Grand Challenges Summit, Feb 13-14, 2025, in Murfreesboro, TN. Learn more: grandchallenges.tennessee.edu/2025-summit/