The academic year saw significant changes for Quantitative Biology Institute. The previous director of the Institute, winfried (Biological Sciences), went into well-deserved retirement, and Peter Jung (Physics & Astronomy) was elected as QBI’s new chair. Jung works closely with the new leadership team of neuroscientist Mitchell Day (Biological Sciences) and biomathematician Winfried Just (Mathematics).
Most notable, the Institute has welcomed five new members during the year expanding the range of research conducted in QBI in new and exciting areas.
Qiliang Wu (Mathematics) brings expertise in the areas of pattern formation, dynamical systems and mathematical biology. Francois-Xavier Brajot (College of Health Sciences and Professions) and Fuh-Cherng Jeng (School of Communication Sciences and Disorders) conduct research in speech and hearing disorders and on how the brain processes speech and auditory signals. These two new members together with Day and Alexander Neiman (Physics & Astronomy) form an interdisciplinary team with a focus on how acoustic signals are processed in the cochlea and brain, and how the brain interprets and produces the motor commands for speech.
Horacio Castillo (Physics & Astronomy) conducts exciting research in the important area of cell reprogramming. Diego Alvarado-Serrano (Biological Sciences) brings a new research program to Ohio University and QBI that focuses on the role of spatial and geographical complexity for population genetics. New to our campus, Alvarado-Serrano is an experimentalist, currently establishing a genomics lab at OHIO as well as a mathematical and computational modeler. “We are very excited about his arrival and participation at QBI,” says Jung.
“We look forward to another successful year at QBI. Our main goal remains to bring together scientists from the life sciences and physical sciences to form interdisciplinary teams to tackle new and exciting problems and to support their work.”
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