Comments | blastus: A Mathematician, a Computer Scientist, and a Biologist Walk in to a Bar...

blastus

A Mathematician, a Computer Scientist, and a Biologist Walk in to a Bar...

Jul 02, 2007 21:23

Today was the first day of the Algebraic Biology conference at RISC in Hagenberg. The talks on tap were quite a mix of biology and mathematics. This is, of course, what they were aiming for, but it is certainly different than anything I have ever seen. There was also a pretty even mix of 'published paper' presentations and 'tutorials', the former ( Read more... )

doins, technical, thoughtful, little things, conferences

Comments 4

motomike14 July 2 2007, 22:13:34 UTC

That's pretty cool you get to attend such a conference like that; I would promptly fly to Austriaif I had the chance to attend it. But, you're thoughts are very inspiring for me, especially as I'm seeking a double major in math and biology right now. Much of what you said is what I have been trying to explain to people everytime I tell them I am pursuing such an area of study, which to the common person, have no essential connections what so ever.

Let me ask you this; does it seem like one particular field is trying to assert their prominence over the other is the quest of new research? Or, is there mutual agreement between the CS/Math and Biology parties that more most be done to incorporate their research together and forget about their differences?

My fear is that the Biology side may be still aspiring to assert their dominance over the Math/CS folk in my reading of various academic journals and articles as of lately, as positive as these publications appear thus far.

blastus July 6 2007, 22:11:10 UTC

Well, the good news is that either two or four years from now they are planning on hosting it, if I gathered this rightly, in North Carolina. Next year it is here in Austria again. Look into it; there may be opportunities for funding for travel ( ... )

mindspillage July 3 2007, 02:19:43 UTC

That's pretty interesting. Now, here's a few questions: did the math/CS people prepare their talks as if they would be talking to biologists? Did the biologists prepare their talks as if they would be talking to mathematicians? Or were the talks clearly in the style and assuming the background knowledge of those in their own group? Were people encouraged to make their talks accessible to the "other side"?

In any case, it sounds like you had a pretty good time.

blastus July 6 2007, 23:03:01 UTC

Unfortunately there were representatives from every discipline who made poor, prior-knowledge-assumed presentations. For this reason I can't really say that I had a good time at the conference. I have been here in Linz, Austria for two weeks altogether: I presented a paper at one conference, attended a two-week summer school (which is relevant to my work) since I was in town, and sat in on the algebraic biology conference as a part of the school.

If I may say so, I think that in general the mathematicians were better at making their talks accessible. Over three days I heard 29 out of 31 talks. There were a couple of biologically-bent talks that were much easier than the majority of the math/cs presentations, but I would say that the ratio of approachable math talks to overall bio talks was higher. (Naturally, take that with a grain of salt: You know my math background, and I've heard more organized discussion of biology over the past 10 days, I think, than the entirety of my life leading up to that point ( ... )