This collaborative award will support formation of a Physics of Living Systems Graduate Student Research Network, a trans-institutional community-based network of graduate students and graduate student educators all working on the physics of living systems. The initial participating institutions are the University of California, San Diego (which will coordinate the program), the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Princeton University, Yale University, Cambridge University, and University College, London. The network structure will allow students at participating institutions (and a select number of other students) to meet their peers (both in-person and in-silico) and collectively help define the research agenda for this field. It will also allow for the creation of visiting internships, which will serve both as a way of broadening students perspectives on possible approaches to difficult research topics and as a way of creating collaborative ties between groups at the various sites. This structure will also enable the exploration of various means of educating these students in biology, while also ensuring that they develop and maintain a firm grounding in physics. This award is supported by the Physics of Livings Systems Program in the Physics Division in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, as well as Molecular and Cellular Biosciences in the Directorate for Biological Sciences, and the Office of International Science and Engineering.
