Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Informatics for FY 2003

Weitz, Joshua S, Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Interdisciplinary Informatics are sponsored jointly by the Directorates for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) and Biological Sciences (BIO) to encourage research and training that cross the traditional disciplinary boundaries between them. These fellowships provide opportunities for interdisciplinary research and educational activities in biology and informatics to a wide range of recent doctoral recipients (biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, and others) who seek to conduct research on biological questions using informatics tools and methods. It is expected that the Fellows trained through these fellowships will play an important role in training the future workforce. Postdoctoral training in informatics will permit junior scientists trained in biology, mathematical, chemical, and physical sciences to play key roles in developing new quantitative tools and methods that will advance informatics in biology and other fields. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "Multi-scale modeling of the structure and dynamics of vascular plant networks." This study of vascular plants has 3 primary aims: to develop a three-dimensional spatial model of network growth in vascular plants; to implement mesoscopic computational models of water transport coupled to the transportation network itself, and to scale up individual models of vascular plant dynamics to carbon exchange at the ecosystem level.