Support – NIMBioS

Support to the Broad Research Community

The role of an institute is to create more than the sum of our parts. Part of our ongoing mission is to serve as a communal center for academic thought in mathematical biology and life science modeling. At NIMBioS, we help run a large diversity of program types, organized by researchers from around the globe and funded by an equally diverse array of agencies and foundations. We provide administrative support and expert advice for how to plan and execute each of these types of activities. We make the planning part easy for organizers and we make the experience enjoyable for participants. We also create community and enhance our local, regional, national, and international research environment by bringing people together.

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers interact across our Institute to broaden their exposure to different disciplines, gain experience in inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary research communication, and experience different approaches to quantitative life sciences research. Junior faculty find community and career mentoring. Senior faculty and researchers from outside academia find an exciting and collaborative playground for the interchange of ideas and opportunities.

At NIMBioS, we take our role as a center of our intellectual and emotional community as our most ambitious and important goal.

How can we help you?

NIMBioS Services

We help design, organize, host and run conferences, workshops, working groups, tutorials, and more. We also provide administrative support and expert advice for how to plan and execute each of these types of activities. We make the planning part easy for organizers and we make the experience enjoyable for participants.

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Outreach and Education

Outreach and Education events range from summer camps for K-12 students, to undergraduate research conferences, to discussion series on inclusivity in STEM, to public lecture series held in local community venues; they are as creative and diverse as the organizers who envision them.

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Workshops

NIMBioS Workshops bring together larger groups of people for a single meeting on a broad topic, or set of related topics, in modeling life sciences to summarize and synthesize the state of the art and identify future directions. NIMBioS Investigative Workshops have produced more than 150 journal papers, 86 presentations or posters, 2 book chapters, and 12 grant proposals.

If you are interested in getting such a group together, please reach out to us and we will help identify opportunities to target for funding and help you get a proposal together to apply for those opportunities to bring your vision to life at NIMBioS!

Working Groups

During our initial funding period as an NSF Synthesis Center, Working Groups were chosen to focus on major well-defined scientific questions at the interface between biology and mathematics that require insights from diverse researchers, meeting up to three times over a two-year period. NIMBioS Working Groups have produced more than 300 journal papers, 127 presentations or posters, 16 book chapters, and 21 grant proposals.

We no longer have internal funds to support such groups ourselves, but we are enthusiastic about supporting the development of applications to host such groups using our NIMBioS expertise, infrastructure, and support. Working Groups are relatively small with no more than 15 participants, focused on a well-defined topic and with well-defined goals and metrics of success. If you are interested in getting such a group together, please reach out to us and we will help identify opportunities to target for funding and help you get a proposal together to apply for those opportunities to bring your vision to life at NIMBioS!

Tutorials

Tutorials at NIMBioS provide both students and professionals in-depth, cross-disciplinary instruction in quantitative topics. Whether you are in academia, government or industry, our Tutorials help you learn the latest mathematical and computational approaches to solving complex or data intensive research problems. Tutorials run for 2 to 5 days with nationally and internationally recognized professors and researchers as instructors. Tutorials can be held on-site at NIMBioS or with virtual participants held live online at NIMBioS.

Many research focused proposals benefit by adding a Tutorial among their Broader Impacts efforts and partnering with NIMBioS allows a research team to rely on a well-oiled machine to offer such programs and achieve their goals without having to reinvent the wheel themselves.

If you are interested in getting such a group together, please reach out to us and we will help identify opportunities to target for funding and help you get a proposal together to apply for those opportunities to bring your vision to life at NIMBioS!

Short-term Visitors

Short-term visitors are supported to work on-site at NIMBioS for periods up to one week to foster synthetic research at the interface between mathematics and biology

Self-supported Visitors

We provide office space and a collaborative scientific environment for self-supported visitors for visits of up to several months duration, with the length of stay determined by the objectives of the proposed project.

Postdoctoral Researchers

Since 2009, NIMBioS has provided opportunities for postdoctoral scholarship at the interface between mathematics and the biological sciences.

Graduate Assistantships

We are open to current UTK graduate students working at the interface between mathematics and biology

Education/Outreach/DEI Events

These events range from summer camps for K-12 students, to undergraduate research conferences, to discussion series on inclusivity in STEM, to public lecture series held in local community venues; they are as creative and diverse as the organizers who envision them

We Have Hosted...

26 Working Groups
23 Investigative Workshops
27 Postdoctoral Fellows
154 Short-term Visitors
104+ Educational and Outreach Activities
...and a community of over 3,500 participants from 641 Institutions, spanning 54 Countries

We have helped support teams as they prepared articles and grant proposals to share the ideas that came out of our meetings, and we are so excited to continue supporting our community over the years to come.

More unique resources are available at NIMBioS

Interdisciplinary Opportunities

An environment that encourages interdisciplinary interactions

Access to Expertise

Access to the large pool of expertise across the mathematical and biological sciences at UTK and ORNL

Scientific Support and Access

Exceptional scientific support and access to the best high performance computing facilities in the world

Access to Local Activities

Outstanding cultural activities within easy walking distance from NIMBioS in downtown Knoxville

Leading Programs

Excellent linkages to the world's leading programs in mathematical biology

Location

The natural beauty of East Tennessee with Great Smoky Mountains National Park a short distance away and a very affordable region.