From October 9-11, QUBES team members attended BEER - an international symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research. This unique conference brings together biologists and mathematicians with the goal of fostering collaboration between the two fields. This year’s conference did not disappoint! From the keynote address by Dr. Carlos Castillo-Chavez to the annual soccer game, BEER was packed with excellent technical sessions by leaders in the biomathematics field and amazing networking opportunities.

Given that the members of the BEER community have tremendous experience in quantitative biology education, they are natural partners for QUBES. Therefore, QUBES used this venue to unveil the Grand Opening of qubeshub.org, our virtual center that serves to increase the visibility, utility, and adoption of existing quantitative biology materials and peer educator interactions. During the QUBES Invited Session,  Dr. Charles Umbanhowar Jr. shared his team’s recent progress on assessment in quantitative biology education and Ruth Kermish-Allen discussed strategies for fostering online collaboration. To view all of  the presentations from the QUBES session at BEER, you can visit: https://qubeshub.org/resources/809

QUBES also kicked off a faculty mentoring network at BEER with the goals of identifying 1) future mentors and 2) ideas for future mentoring networks. Participants met in person and each created a group on QUBES Hub related to their research in biomathematics. Check out the wide variety of groups to find collaborators or get ideas for how you can use more quantitative biology in your classroom.

• Systems Dynamics
• SIMIODE (Systemic Initiative for Modeling Investigations and Opportunities with Differential Equations)
• Mathematical Biology at Puget Sound
• Boolean Network Modeling
• UPBURG (University of Portland Biomathematics Undergraduate Research Group)

Do you have ideas for a group or faculty mentoring network that you would like to see at BEER next year? You can contact with me suggestions or questions.

BEER 2015 Faculty Mentoring Network

1. BEER
2. conference
3. faculty mentoring networks