Previously I discussed the Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences program here at UCSB. I am now a core faculty member of this program as can be seen here. This means I can serve as a QMSS advisor, although students can probably get more information by visiting the QMSS curriculum page. I can also be the outside representative on a QMSS student’s dissertation committee which is a requirement for the QMSS program. So I hope students start knocking down my door, although I’ll be happy if one shows up.

I’m currently attending Bioengineering Insights 2009. It is a one-day conference on the interdisciplinary research effort at UCSB and with industry in the fields of biology, engineering, chemistry, physics and (with any luck) statistics. The opening keynote address was given by Lee Hood of the Institute for Systems Biology. He gave an overview talk about the work his group is doing at ISB and where he believes medicine is headed in the future. In particular, promoted the idea of P4 medicine, where the P’s stand for Predictive, Preventive, Personalized, and Participatory and more information can be found here.

I attended Session A: Systems Biology this morning and learned alot about research going on at UCSB. The speakers were Linda Petzold, Cherie Briggs, Jean Carlson, Megan Valentine, and David Low. In particular, I think my research would mesh well with Linda Petzold and her work on Post-traumatic stress disorder, Cherie Briggs and her SIR-type modeling of fungal infections in frogs, or David Low and his Markov chain approach to understanding a 1kilobase pair region of the bacterial genome. Overall I thought Session A was full of exciting new research topics.

To all Ph.D. students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, please check out the quantitative methods in the social sciences (QMSS) program. From the website:

Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (QMSS) at UCSB is an interdisciplinary Ph.D. emphasis available to students who wish to develop and use cutting-edge quantitative methods in social science research. Our curriculum is designed to provide students with the rigorous mathematical and statistical background necessary for advanced quantitative work, while also providing a broad interdisciplinary perspective on the use of quantitative methods in the social sciences. A growing number of departments and faculty participate in the emphasis and our weekly colloquia, which features speakers engaged in quantitative research across all social science disciplines.

I recommend any student interested in quantitative analysis in their field check out QMSS.

Forecast: Students with a QMSS emphasis will be more marketable than their counterparts without it.