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Overview | Summary of Courses

Offered By:	Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology, Faculty of Asian Studies, School of Art, ANU College of Pysical Sciences, and ANU College of Medicine, Biology & Environment
Academic Contact:	Dr Elizabeth Ormerod (Mathematics)
Areas of Interest:	Biology and Mathematics

The intention of the major is to attract students with good quantitative skills into biology, and for these students to keep a quantitative stream going through to third year. The 2003 report from the US National Research Council, the Board on Life Sciences, entitled Undergraduate Biology Education for Future Research Biologists, emphasises and the importance of building a strong foundation in mathematics and the physical and information sciences to prepare students for research that is increasingly interdisciplinary in character (Recommendation 1). The importance of mathematics, statistics, computer science, and the physical sciences for future researchers in biology is the fundamental emphasis of this report.

Students doing the major will need in first year to complete BIOL1003, BIOL1004, two courses in mathematics, normally two in chemistry because of biology prerequisites and co-requisites, and are strongly urged to do physics or computer science, even though a consequence is that they would not then do other first biology courses. Students will be required to complete the second year course MATH2307 Bioinformatics and Biological Modelling and will study some mathematics and biology through to third year. Students are strongly encouraged to do further biology and mathematics courses and will often take out a second major emphasising one of these directions.

Requirements

This major will consist of a minimum of 42 units of courses including:

(a) MATH2307 Bioinformatics and Biological Modelling

(b) three of the following, including at least one BIOL course:

• BIOL2131 Population Ecology
• BIOL2151 Introductory Genetics
• BIOL2161 Genes:Replication and Expression
• BIOL2171 Biochemistry of the Cell
• STAT2001 Introductory Mathematical Statistics
• MATH2305 Differential Equations and Applications
• MATH2405 Maths Methods 1 Honours: Ordinary Differential Equations and Advanced Vector Calculus 
• MATH2306 Partial Differential Equations and Applications
• MATH2406 Maths Methods 2 Honours: Partial Differential Equations, Fourier Analysis and Complex Analysis
• MATH3511 Scientific Computing 
• STAT2001 Introductory Mathematical Statistics

(c) three of the following, including at least one BIOL or ENVS course, and at least one MATH course:

• BIOL3122 Plant Ecology
• BIOL3132 Field Studies in Behavioural Ecology
• BIOL3151 Population Genetics
• BIOL3153 Conservation Biology
• BIOL3157 Advanced Genetics and Bioinformatics
• BIOL3161 Genomics and its applications
• ENVS3022 Environmental Biogeography and Global Ecology
• MATH3017 Advanced Bioinformatics
• MATH3062 Fractal Geometry and Chaotic Dynamics
• MATH3133 Environmental Modelling and Integrated Assessment
• MATH3322 Mathematical Methods 2
• MATH3501 Scientific and Industrial Modelling
• MATH3502 Large Scale Matrix Computations
• MATH3511 Scientific Computing
• MATH3512 Matrix Computations and Optimisation
• MATH3353 Topics in Bioinformatics Honours

First Year course advice

MATH1013/1115, MATH1014/1116, BIOL1003, BIOL1004, CHEM1101and CHEM1201 are highly recommended.