Introduction to Quantitative Modeling in Biology

*Taught Online for Summer 2021*  Although mathematics and biology have traditionally not gotten along, recent advances in molecular biology and medicine have made biological experiments essentially quantitative.  This course introduces mathematical ideas that are useful for understanding and analyzing biological data, including data description and fitting, hypothesis testing and Bayesian thinking, Markov models, and differential equations.  Students acquire hands-on experience working with data and implementing mathematical models computationally using the R programming language.  The two main goals are to acquire computational skills and conceptual familiarity with mathematical models used in biological research.