The Institute For Environmental
Modeling
PURPOSE AND FOCUS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR
ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING AT UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE, KNOXVILLE
PURPOSE AND FOCUS:
The purpose of TIEM is to do basic research on significant
environmental problems that impact the State of Tennessee and have
national and international implications. The focus of the Institute
is on experimental design, environmental model formulation together
with mathematical and statistical analyses of the models, projection
of the analysis for use by decision makers, development of theoretical
and computational tools for studying the environment as well as
development of hardware and software (such as parallel computing
and visualization graphics) to implement and analyze the models. TIEM
is housed in the Division of Biology and is directed by Louis J. Gross.
Detailed objectives of this program are:
Research. (1) To support interdisciplinary research in mathematics,
computational science, and ecology; (2) To provide research training and
supervision for graduate students based in several departments and programs at
UTK; and (3) To foster scientific interactions and collaborations between
quantitative faculty and students and empirical researchers.
Education. (4) To provide excellent graduate educational training to
enable our students to compete for both industrial and academic positions;
(5) To introduce advanced undergraduates to mathematical modeling methods in
the biological sciences; and (6) To aid the development of quantitative
skills for life science students at all levels.
Service. (7) To provide an environmental modeling, mathematical and
computational ecology connection linking the University to public and private
organizations; and (8) To provide international education in the areas of
mathematical and computational ecology and environmental modeling especially
to developing countries.
PAST AND PRESENT HIGHLIGHTS:
In its last 5 years, TIEM staff obtained approximately $3,000,000
in external research funding. The Institute for Environmental Modeling
is the headquarters for the UTK effort to analyze the long-term impacts of alternative hydrologic planning in the Everglades of South Florida, project ATLSS. Ongoing efforts include an NSF-funded project to aid the development of curricula for the quantitative training of life science students (BioEd), an NIH-funded effort to offer short courses to train biologists in the mathematics of biological complexity (Courses), the development of risk asessment tools including the Risk Assessment Information System (RAIS) and Spatial Analysis and Decision Asssistance (SADA) and a collaborative effort with Cadmus, Inc. to develop ecotoxicological models. TIEM makes up the Computational Ecology Lab associated with the UT Center for Information Technology Research (CITR) and is the home for the Computational Ecology Cluster component of the Scalable IntraCampus Research Grid (SInRG). TIEM operates an extensive collection of computational facilities.
Back to TIEM Main Page
Louis J. Gross checks mail daily at: gross@tiem.utk.edu
Written by: Louis J. Gross
Web design by: Erin M. Miller
Last update: December 7, 2001