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Seamon Joins IMCI

IMCI is pleased to welcome Erich Seamon, a quantitative climatologist and data scientist, to the postdoctoral team. Seamon holds a MS in geological sciences from Bowling Green State University and a Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Idaho. He has worked on several research team collaborations throughout the Pacific Northwest and thrives in this synergistic environment of dynamic, multi-disciplinary science research.

Seamon is the second postdoc to join us in as many months, which is reflective of our current geospatial modeling core initiative.

“Understanding the interactions and changing importance of model inputs can often times be just as valuable as the final predictive outcome,” said Seamon. “IMCI’s collaborative, team approach to complex systems is exactly the type of research I want to be engaged in.”

Outside of his life full of numbers and quantitative research, Seamon is an artist. He paints abstract pieces that represent the intersection of chaos and organization – which is similar to the chaotic relationships of the climatic and atmospheric worlds he studies. “I’ve found that music and art are a nice offset to my research,” he said.

About Us, Welcome

Geospatial Modeling Postdoc Joins IMCI

Welcome, Hui (William) Wang to Idaho, the University of Idaho and to the Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation!

Geospatial Modeling is a current Core Initiative, or unique research area for ICMI. We are excited to add a talented postdoctoral fellow to the team with this focus and look forward to establishing new collaborations.

William has been in the US for five years and just finished his PhD in Geography at the University of Connecticut. He made the drive to Moscow by himself, crossing 12 states and enjoying the diverse landscape along the way.

So far he’s discovered Moscow’s Farmer’s Market and many friendly people. Soccer is William’s sport of choice and he also enjoys fishing and hiking. He’s excited about the move. “Idaho is the right state for me!” he stated.

About Us, Welcome

National Academy of Sciences Member Jim Bull to Join U of I Faculty

This article was written by Leigh Cooper, Science and Content Writer at University of Idaho Communications and Marketing. We’re excited that Dr. Bull is affiliated with the Center for Modeling Complex Interactions.

MOSCOW, Idaho — Feb. 13, 2019 — National Academy of Sciences (NAS) member Jim Bull will join the University of Idaho faculty in fall 2019. He will be the first NAS member affiliated with an educational institution in Idaho, according to NAS. The academy is a nonprofit and private society of scholars charged by Congress to provide the nation objective and independent council on scientific and technological matters; Bull was elected to NAS in 2016.

Bull is an evolutionary biologist who has specialized in the evolution of viruses and sex determination. He joins the College of Science Department of Biological Sciences from The University of Texas at Austin.

“What I really want to do here at U of I is focus on socially relevant problems and their solutions,” Bull said.

At U of I, Bull will focus on his teaching and three main research projects:

Bull plans to offer a course he designed in Austin that instructs students on how to think scientifically. The class, geared toward non-science majors, is dedicated not to teaching students about a specific scientific discipline but how to evaluate and use evidence to draw conclusions. He is also looking forward to directing undergraduate research and enlarging the undergraduate experience beyond the classroom.
He is starting a collaboration with Department of Mathematics faculty members Steve Krone and Chris Remien that will use computer modeling to investigate the effectiveness of a genetic engineering technology called gene drive that spreads desired genes throughout a population.
In work with Department of Biological Sciences’ Scott Nuismer, Bull will study the potential for designing vaccines that could be transmitted from animal to animal without inoculating each animal individually in order to create an immune population. He hopes work with researchers from the University of Wisconsin and U.S. Department of Agriculture in Fort Collins, Colorado, will result in a transmissible vaccine for the raccoon rabies virus.
Bull will test the use of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — to prevent bacterial infections, like urinary tract infections or ear infections, in dogs and cats.

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Postdoc Arrives from France

Welcome Ousseini Issake Salia to the CMCI team! Ousseini comes to us from France where he was doing research at the Institute of Research for Development in Montpellier. At the U of I, he will be working jointly between CMCI and the Hohenlohe Lab. Check out his profile to learn more or to contact him.

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Welcome Dharmeshkumar Patel

Please join us in welcoming Dharmeshkumar Patel, CMCI’s newest Collaboratorium Molecular Modeling Postdoctoral Researcher.

Patel has a masters degree in Medicinal Chemistry and earned his PhD from the University of Sydney where he worked on computational study of binding of ion channels inhibitors and protein aggregation. He also has work experience with Piramal Lifesciences Ltd., a drug discovery company based in Maharashtra, India, where he was a member of the team that designed the anticancer clinical candidate P7170. Most recently, Patel was a research officer involved in GPCR modeling at Curtin University in Australia.

At the U of I, Patel is involved in the CMCI Core initiative project of development of free energy calculation algorithm to study thermodynamic properties of different states of biomolecular systems in an efficient and cognizant way.

Committed to a wide variety of modeling projects across campus and around the globe, Patel uses various molecular modeling approaches in computational drug discovery such as virtual screening, molecular docking, pharmacophore mapping, structure based drug design and binding affinity prediction of small molecules. He also has expertise in protein structure analysis, homology modeling and protein-protein interactions. He has experience in ADME and toxicity prediction of drug-like molecules and performs molecular dynamic simulations with enhanced sampling techniques, including umbrellas sampling, metadynamics and ABF simulations to calculate free energy profiles.

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