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"Girls,
Do The Maths"
Adelle
Coster, University of New South Wales
I
am a bio-mathematician. I use the physical sciences and mathematics
to create quantitative models of biological systems. In particular,
I am
interested in biomedical
systems such as the
heart and the brain.
April the 12th this year fell on a Wednesday, which is my
"research day." I
don't have any teaching or administrative meetings scheduled,
so I can concentrate on research.
I met with a colleague and we finalised a research publication
on synthetic electrocardiograms.
We are modelling the electrical activity in the heart with
simplified mathematical units to represent the different regions.
We have been able to get realistic electrocardiograms resulting
from only 64 units - even embodying
some of the features of heart disease! We
also mapped out some other collaborative work that we are
doing, and planned some new research projects and publications.
Research, and the dissemination of the results of the research,
are a core activity of a university academic. It is vital
that we communicate the outcomes of our research into the
community - both scientific and the community at large. Apart
from the research publications which are a big output of my
job, on April 12th I also worked on my scientific society's
website - I am the treasurer and web-coordinator for the Australian
Society for Biophysics.
I also spent some time in my role helping coordinate an outreach
programme "Girls Do The Maths" which
is trying to encourage students, and in particular young women,
to consider Mathematics as a career. These are "service"
to my scientific community, and represent part of my job as
a university academic, apart from being good things to do.
I have always wanted to
get to the first principles of why things work
and how they might be quantitatively described. My career
has spanned
physics, electrical engineering and mathematics, specialising
in problems of biology.In high school I studied as much science
and mathematics as I could -not that I didn't enjoy art and
languages.
I was really excited by how things might be explained and
described scientifically. The idea of a scientific method,
by which we can explore our hypotheses and ideas was also
very appealing.
I have to admit that having a father
who was a university
physicist probably did colour
my perception of things. He encouraged me
to explore and question my surroundings, to really pin down
what underlying
principles were at work in the world around me.
I have never regretted studying science.
It is a great feeling to be in a career where you are employed
to think. I really enjoy what you do.
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