This is a proposal for a pre-conference workshop in conjunction with the """"""""2010 Mathematical Field of Dreams Conference"""""""". The workshop will include approximately 50 undergraduate students, recruited nationwide from groups underrepresented in medical research (African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and others) as well as some of their undergraduate mentors. Students will be selected who have an interest in both biology and mathematics. Priority for support will be given to underrepresented students from minority serving institutions without extensive resources and programs in biomedical research. The pre-conference workshop will introduce them to opportunities for graduate study in the quantitative biomedical sciences including biostatistics, mathematical biology, bioinformatics, genetic epidemiology, and biomedical engineering. These are rapidly growing areas of important interdisciplinary biomedical research, and undergraduates, especially those from small universities without a research intensive biomedical component, are not always familiar with these opportunities.
There is a shortage of American students applying to enter doctoral programs in quantitative fields. This proposal is to address this specific shortage in quantitative biomedical research by introducing underrepresented minority undergraduates and their faculty mentors to interesting, exciting, and important research in biomedical engineering, mathematical biology, bioinformatics, genetic epidemiology and biostatistics. Students will be encouraged to apply to graduate school and their faculty mentors will be provided with information that they may disseminate at their home institution.
