Team Science Experts
Many of the most ambitious projects NIMBioS supports involve research teams that span a diversity of disciplines, represent people from many different backgrounds, and involve researchers at every stage of career. Such teams often face challenges in establishing healthy and productive working environments that bridge these potential pitfalls in communication and interoperability. At NIMBioS, we rely on the experiences we have gained in hosting over 400 different inter- and multidisciplinary project teams and on our in-house experts in the science of team science to provide services ranging from design consultations to ongoing, active team facilitation.
Time-shared Trainee/Personnel Support
One of the biggest limitations faced by researchers is how to provide support for sufficient effort and expertise to accomplish their research goals within the practical funding limits of individual awards. Funding a graduate student, postdoctoral researcher, or other research specialist (e.g., a technician or data analyst) can be a prohibitive cost if the work required for the project is only a few months of effort, but recruiting such a person requires a semester- or year-long commitment of support. At NIMBioS, we can help researchers leverage economies of scale, matching researchers with different grants to support a researcher who has (or is learning) the skills they need to contribute to both/all projects, but allowing each PI to contribute only the level of funding needed for their individual projects. When appropriate, NIMBioS coordinates and helps enact a shared mentoring plan, ensuring that researchers who are jointly funded in this way benefit from the experience.
Grant Writing
Writing proposals for funding about quantitative life sciences research has its own unique set of challenges. The audience for a single proposal is likely to include disciplinary experts whose expertise covers only one part of the proposed research, but who must still be able to understand why the other components are themselves interesting and important. Many proposals are destined to be evaluated by multiple review panels. NIMBioS has a strong track record of helping researchers frame and communicate their proposed efforts in ways that highlight the importance of advancing inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary science to a diverse audience of reviewers and funders. Researchers considering writing their next proposal can come to us at any stage in the process from refining the initial concept to organizing the proposal to be coherent and compelling, to polishing the presentation.
Science Communications
For field experts, early career and established researchers, former participants or anyone else in the mathbio community who would like to promote their efforts, our communications manager can help tailor specific content to promote your work. We can design social media posts, assist with writing and pitching press releases as well as crafting compelling messages to share with a general audience about any ongoing research efforts, projects, publications, or whatever you want to highlight, but aren't sure where to begin. We recognize the unique nature of mathbio research, and we're ready to assist you in connecting with your target audience.
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