Special Studies in Biology - BIOG 2000

Ziyad Mahfoud, PhD, Professor of Research in Population Health Sciences
Daniel Renzi, PhD, Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Fall - 2 Credits

This is a one-semester introductory math course intended for students interested in medicine. The focus is applying mathematics (statistics, algebra, and introductory calculus) to solve problems that arise in medicine and the science classes that are part of an undergraduate pre-medical curriculum. The statistics portion of the class will cover methods for summarizing and presenting data. It will be centered on univariate and bivariate analysis techniques used in making inference. Although theoretical concepts will be explained, the course will be applied in nature where students will be working on analyzing data using a statistical analysis software such as IBM-SPSS and on reading and understanding statistical methods used in published papers in Medicine and health sciences.

In addition, this course contains a review of functions, solving algebraic equations, and differential and integral calculus, and demonstrates their use in solving problems that arise in the physical sciences. Applications will be selected from chemistry, physics, and medicine, and will usually include dimensional analysis, gas laws, vectors, motion in one and two dimensions, Fick's law and fluid flow.