Mathematical Bioscience Institute
Pattern of Administration and Governance
Updated: January 30, 2008
I. Preamble
The mission of the MBI is:
To support this mission, MBI programs are designed to reinforce and build upon existing research efforts in the mathematical biosciences, and to inspire and accelerate the growth of the community and its intellectual growth. These include emphasis year programs, current topic workshops, education programs, and research projects. The governance and administrative structure of the MBI are designed to achieve the goals and further the mission of the institute.
The structures presented in this document shall be reviewed periodically by the Director of the MBI and any suggested revisions shall be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval and adoption.
II. Administration
II.A. Directors. There shall be a Director of the MBI who shall be the scientific and administrative leader of the institute. There shall be a Senior Associate Director, several Associate Directors, and an Assistant Director who report to the Director. The Director reports annually to the Board of Trustees (BOT) on all matters of the institute's performance and plans in meeting its goals. There shall be a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC). The Scientific Advisory Committee shall meet at least annually to suggest, discuss, and approve the scientific and education programs.
The Director shall be a person
recognized internationally in the field of mathematical biology and shall have
primary scientific and management responsibilities for the MBI. This is a full
time position and typically the Director shall be a tenured faculty member of
The Ohio State University. He/she shall provide for programs of research,
community building, and education designed to meet the goals and achieve the
mission of the institute. In doing so he/she shall consult broadly and actively
with the mathematical, scientific, educational, and industrial communities at
the local, national and international levels. The Director shall provide for
efficient day-to-day operations and effective use and management of the
institute's resources. The Director shall provide the SAC and the BOT all the
relevant information prior to their respective meetings. The Director reports
administratively to the Dean of the
The Senior Associate Director shall be a person recognized internationally in the field of mathematical biology. This is a full time position and typically the Senior Associate Director will be a faculty member (tenured or visiting) of The Ohio State University. His/her duties include designing and implementing new programs that promote the mission and goals of the institute and representing the institute in the Director's absence.
The Associate Directors typically shall be faculty members of The Ohio State University chosen from the biological sciences, the medical sciences, and the mathematical/statistical/computational sciences. These are part-time positions with duties that include providing scientific, educational, and technical support to the Director and Senior Associate Director across a broad range of disciplines appropriate to the mission of the MBI. They provide information on trends, concepts and fundamentals of various bioscience disciplines, assisting in forging links with biomedical researchers, help in selecting and providing guidance and mentoring to postdoctoral fellows, and accompany the Director on visits to bioscience companies.
The Assistant Director shall be a highly qualified person in a discipline appropriate to the mission of the MBI. This is a full time position with duties that include day-to-day operations of the MBI offices and supervision of institute staff. The MBI shall maintain an efficient and effective staff that performs daily tasks including human resources, accounting, communications, data acquisition and management, office space and supplies, and computer support.
II. B. Terms, Evaluation and Succession of the Directors.The Director shall serve a term of five years. The Senior Associate Director and the Associate Directors shall serve a term of three years. Directors, Senior Associate Director, and Associate Directors may serve multiple consecutive terms.
The Director, in consultation with the Board of Trustees and appropriate departments at The Ohio State University, and with their approval shall be responsible for identifying and recruiting appropriate local, national, and international candidates for the Senior Associate Director position. The Director shall identify and appoint local suitable candidates for the Associate Director and Assistant Director positions. Wider searches for these positions shall be undertaken when needed.
The performance of the Director shall be evaluated annually by the Board of Trustees. The performance of the Senior Associate Director, Associate Directors, and Assistant Director shall be evaluated annually by the Director. In consultation with the Assistant Director, the Director and Senior Associate Director shall annually evaluate the performance of MBI office staff.
Two years prior to the end of the term of the Director, the Director shall notify the Board of Trustees whether he/she seeks re-appointment or intends to step down. In the first case, the Board of Trustees shall review the performance of the Director and, in consultation with the NSF, shall recommend to the Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences whether to re-appoint the Director to another term. If the Dean decides not to reappoint the Director, or if the Director intends to step down, then the Dean shall form a search committee. The committee shall include members of the Mathematics and Statistics Departments at OSU, the Board of Trustees, Scientific Advisory Committee, and representatives of the bioscience community. The committee shall interview candidates and send a short list to the Dean. The Dean shall decide to whom an offer will be made.
II.C. Committees. The Scientific Advisory Committee is described in article III below. In addition, the MBI shall have standing committees charged with providing advice to the Directors on substantive matters of the institute. There shall be an Emphasis Year Organizing Committee (OC), External Scientific Advisory Committee for the Emphasis Year (ESAC), Current Topics Workshops Committee (CTWC), Local Scientific Advisory Committee (LSAC), and Industrial Advisory Committee (IAC). In addition to these committees, the Director shall constitute and charge such ad hoc committees or new standing committees as he/she deems necessary.
In forming committees the Director shall seek input from a wide variety of sources and shall balance committee membership to achieve breadth and depth of expertise in mathematics and science, diversity with respect to gender and other under-represented groups, and achieve appropriate balance between academic and industrial backgrounds of committee members.
The Director shall provide and update as needed written guidance to all committees.
II.C.1. Emphasis Year Organizing Committee. After seeking advice and suggestions from the Scientific Advisory Committee, the Director shall assemble a group of researchers that will function as the organizing committee for the emphasis year. This committee of 6 to 8 persons shall be large enough to comprise all the needed expertise but small enough to function effectively as a group. The Director shall charge the organizing committee with drafting a proposal for the emphasis year for consideration, revision and eventual adoption by the Scientific Advisory Committee. The committee shall meet for one full day with the Directors of the MBI to develop a draft proposal containing a rationale for the emphasis year and its various themes, a list and description of workshops and tutorials, list of potential speakers and suggestions for long and short term visitors. In addition, the committee shall nominate experts for membership in the External Scientific Advisory Committee for the Emphasis Year. At the conclusion of an emphasis year, the committee shall draft a final report.
II.C.2 External Scientific Advisory Committee for the Emphasis Year. In consultation with the Emphasis Year Organizing Committee and the Scientific Advisory Committee, the Director shall designate a group of experts to function as the External Scientific Advisory Committee for the Emphasis Year. This committee of 10 to 12 persons chosen primarily from relevant scientific communities shall be charged by the Director with providing advice to the Emphasis Year Organizing Committee as it formulates its draft proposal. The committee typically will not meet in person but rather shall be consulted electronically. The Director shall send an early draft of the proposal to each member of the committee and ask for their input, especially with respect to scientific fidelity and impact of the proposal. The Director shall communicate their suggestions to the Organizing Committee so that it may revise the proposal accordingly.
II.C.3. Local Scientific Advisory Committee. The Local Scientific Advisory Committee shall consist of up to 30 persons chosen by the Director primarily from faculty of The Ohio State University in engineering and the mathematical, physical, biological, and medical sciences. The Director shall charge the committee to help identify current topic workshops, future emphasis year programs, suggestions for curriculum development, potential organizers of workshops and emphasis year programs, and potential mentors for postdoctoral fellows. The committee shall meet at least once each quarter with the Directors of the MBI.
II.C.4. Industrial Advisory Committee.After consultation with the Board of Trustees and the Scientific Advisory Committee the Director shall designate a group of representatives from current and potential Corporate Members and from government laboratories. The Director shall charge the committee with providing advice to the Directors on scientific and education programs, co-sponsorship, mentoring and employment of postdocs and be a liaison between the industrial, academic and government lab communities. The Committee shall meet annually or as frequently as the Director and committee deem appropriate.
II.D. Scientific and Education Programs. The Director shall consult widely in the mathematical bioscience community for appropriate subjects for emphasis years. In particular, the Director will consult with current and past members of the Scientific Advisory Committee, the leadership of national mathematical and scientific professional organizations, departments and institutes, current and past Organizing Committee members, current and past External Advisory Committee members, long and short term visitors to the MBI, current and past workshop organizers and invited speakers, Institute Partners, the Industrial Advisory Committee, as well as current and former Directors and past MBI postdoctoral fellows. The Director shall encourage the wider mathematical and scientific communities to submit ideas for programs.
II.D.1 Timeline and Guidelines for Emphasis Years. The Director and the Scientific Advisory Committee typically shall approve emphasis year programs two to three years in advance.
Guidelines for selecting emphasis years include the importance and timeliness of the theme; achieving appropriate balance among mathematical, theoretical and experimental communities; the potential for mathematical sciences to have an impact on the biological and medical sciences and for the biological and medical sciences to have impact on the mathematical sciences; and appropriate revisiting and re-enforcement of themes from previous emphasis years.
Prior to the annual meeting, the Director and members of the Scientific Advisory Committee shall review and criticize current draft proposals from the relevant Organizing Committee and shall be prepared to propose themes for new emphasis years. Approval of - and proposals for - future emphasis year programs emerge from the annual Scientific Advisory Committee meeting.
When the Scientific Advisory Committee proposes a theme for a new emphasis year, it charges the Director to form an Organizing Committee for the Emphasis Year. In consultation with the Directors of the MBI, the Scientific Advisory Committee will provide a list of names of appropriate members for the Organizing Committee to aid the Director in that task. The Director will provide the Organizing Committee with appropriate background materials and will call a one day meeting of the committee approximately six months after the Board meeting.
After the Organizing Committee meeting, the draft proposal shall be circulated to the Scientific Advisory Committee and the External Scientific Advisory Committee for the Emphasis Year for criticism and input. The draft proposal shall undergo revision until it is submitted to the Scientific Advisory Committee for approval at the next annual meeting.
II.D.2. Emphasis Year Workshops and Tutorials. Members of the
Organizing Committee shall be the primary organizers of workshops of the emphasis
year. Typically, they will add additional workshop co-organizers and tutorial
leaders, as appropriate, in order to broaden the scope of the workshops and the
diversity of speakers and participants. Approximately one year prior to a
workshop, the Director shall contact the organizers to provide them with a document
which gives them written guidance on how a workshop is conducted, including goals
for a workshop, number of participants, diversity issues, financial and
logistical arrangements, etc.
II.D.3. Postdoctoral Program. The Directors of the MBI shall serve as a committee charged with recruiting and developing MBI Postdoctoral Fellows. The committee shall advertise MBI postdoctoral positions in a wide variety of publications so that these opportunities attract top candidates trained in the mathematical or biological sciences. The committee shall hold a discussion with each appointed postdoc and suggest/appoint initial mentors for each postdoc, one from the mathematical sciences and one from the biological sciences. Postdocs shall provide annual progress reports to the committee. The committee shall monitor the progress of each postdoc and provide him/her with constructive feedback and advice. Using a variety of evaluation tools, including interviews with the postdocs and mentors as well as anonymous surveys, the committee shall monitor the quality and impact of mentoring, making changes where appropriate, and provide for appropriate teaching and professional development experiences.
The appointment of MBI
Postdoctoral Fellows shall be renewable annually for up to 3 years. Candidates
for these appointments typically will have earned the PhD in the mathematical
or biological sciences and have backgrounds and records that indicate a strong
interest and research potential in mathematical bioscience. A given cohort of
postdocs shall be recruited so that their background and expertise is
particularly appropriate to the emphasis year theme in the first year of their
appointment, taking into account an appropriate balance between candidates with
primarily mathematical sciences background and candidates with primarily
biological sciences background. The three year term provides postdocs with the
opportunity to engage with the leaders of their field starting in their first year,
broaden their experience and deepen their knowledge in subsequent years, while
providing the support needed to establish themselves as independent
researchers.
In cooperation with current postdocs, the Assistant Director shall maintain and revise a postdoc handbook that provides written advice and guidance to new postdocs.
II.D.4. Long-Term Visitors. Long-term visitors (LTV) are researchers invited to be in residence for one or several quarters. The organizers of current and recent emphasis years shall suggest LTVs. The MBI shall also solicit applications for LTVs to maximize the interaction with postdocs and take part in research and training efforts of the Institute. The Director, in consultation with members of the organizing committee, shall make the decision to whom an offer shall be made.
II.D.5. Current Topic Workshops. In addition to workshops relevant to the annual emphasis years, the MBI shall run current topics workshops on a relatively short timescale on rapidly emerging themes of potential high impact. Some workshops shall be devoted to mathematical science in a new or emerging area of bioscience. The Director shall solicit input from the Senior Associate Director, the Associate Directors, the Scientific Advisory Committee, the Local Scientific Advisory Committee, Institute Partners, the Industrial Advisory Committee, and the community, in order to identify themes for current topics workshops. The Director shall assemble, for each current topics workshop, a group of researchers that will function as organizers for the workshop.
II.D.6. Institute Partners Meeting. Institute Partners (IP) are academic departments in other institutions whose participation is designed to increase involvement of their faculty and students in mathematical biology and to nurture a national community of scholars. There shall be an annual meeting of the Institute Partners to discuss the MBI's scientific and educational programs, as well as ongoing programs in other institutions, solicit suggestions and input for current topics workshops, solicit suggestions for nomination to the Scientific Advisory Committee. The meeting shall be a forum to discuss common interests and concerns of IP institutions and plan for joint collaborative efforts with MBI support.
II.D.7. Summer Education Programs. Summer educational programs for graduate and undergraduate students shall be arranged by the Directors. Their content shall be tailored to themes of the preceding emphasis years, in order to make good use of past experience.
II.E. Evaluation and Assessment. The Director of the MBI shall
establish and maintain data collection and management mechanisms sufficient to
provide the basis for evaluation of all scientific and education programs. These
data will include visitor statistics, Postdoctoral Fellow recruitment, progress
and placement data, participant surveys, workshop organizer's summary reports
and annual reports from Emphasis Year Organizing Committees. On a regular basis
the Director shall evaluate and assess the scientific and education programs of
the institute to improve the quality and impact of the programs; to assess the
extent to which the programs achieve the mission and goals of the institute;
and to provide feedback to the Scientific Advisory Committee, sponsoring
agencies and institutions.
As an example of the evaluation process, the Directors shall provide an exit survey to the participants of each workshop. Long term visitors shall be requested to write a report on their accomplishments during the period of their visit to the MBI, including suggestions for improvements. Postdoctoral Fellows shall complete an annual survey on their experience in the postdoc program and on the usefulness of the year's workshops and how they can be improved. Every 2-3 years, the Director shall send a questionnaire to all past MBI visitors to solicit information as to how their experience at the MBI impacted their career in terms of position, research, funding, and teaching. The results of these survey instruments shall be tabulated and summarized by the Assistant Director. The Director shall use these results to improve any aspect of the MBI program as needed.
Evaluation and assessment shall also include regular consultation with evaluation experts or agencies which are independent of the MBI.
II.F. Dissemination and Public Outreach. The MBI shall disseminate
results and achievements of the institute's programs and of its participants to
a national and international audience. This shall include making available on
the MBI website all materials assembled from workshops, materials that emerge
from the summer education program projects, and videos of talks and
presentations. Some items, such as the annual reports and the newsletters,
shall be distributed also in hard-copy fashion to the funding agencies as well
as the appropriate national and international audiences, as well as being
available on the MBI website.
The MBI shall publish a newsletter several times a year to inform the community of future programs and to advertise programs and activities of interest to the mathematical bioscience community.
The MBI shall publish annual proceedings based primarily on tutorials, with the aim of serving as introductory material to research themes of the emphasis year.
The MBI shall organize Public Lectures. These lectures shall be aimed at the general public and typically will be loosely related to themes in the current emphasis year.
III. The Scientific Advisory Committee
The MBI shall have a Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC).
The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) shall consist of up to fifteen internationally recognized mathematical scientists and bioscientists from academia, government, and industry. The SAC shall advise the Directors regarding all aspects of the scientific and educational programs of the Mathematical Biosciences Institute. In particular, the SAC shall propose and review scientific and education programs, vote on approval of new Emphasis Year programs, and vote on election of new SAC members. The SAC shall evaluate the performance of the Director and Senior Associate Director, and shall submit a report to the Board of Trustees. The SAC shall assign one of its members to the Board of Trustees.
IV.A. Annual Meeting. The Scientific Advisory Committee shall meet annually. In advance of the meeting, the Director shall provide to the SAC annual reports on scientific programs, education programs, and progress reports on the development of each new emphasis year program. The Director shall provide such reports early enough so that the SAC will have time to respond with requests for additional information, if desired. The Director shall provide such additional information as the SAC requests before the annual meeting.
The SAC shall hold additional meetings or teleconferences as frequently as the Director and the SAC deem appropriate.
IV.B. Election of New SAC Members. Each year, up to five new SAC members are elected by a majority vote of current SAC members and they shall serve, under normal conditions, for a term of three years. Guiding principles for the annual election of new SAC members shall include the following:
(1) SAC members shall be leaders in the mathematical sciences and biosciences and shall be expected to provide breadth and coverage across the entire scientific spectrum of the mathematical biosciences.
(2) Several new members shall be leading researchers in the area of upcoming emphasis years, so that they can provide direct help in the development of the program.
(3) Achieving and maintaining diversity with respect to gender and ethnicity, as well as appropriate balance between academic versus non-academic backgrounds shall be considered in the election of new Board members.
(4) To ensure connections to the wider mathematical biosciences community, senior officers of major mathematical bioscience societies and editors of journals shall be considered for election to the SAC.
(5) A representative of the Institute Partners shall also be considered for election to the SAC.
Prior to the annual meeting of the SAC, the Director shall request members of the SAC to nominate new candidates. The Director shall distribute these names to all the members of the SAC prior to the meeting.
IV.C. Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee. The SAC shall elect a Chair from among members who have served at least one year. The Chair shall serve a 2-year term; if the Chair was elected during his/her second year, then he/she shall remain on the SAC a fourth year.
The Chair shall moderate all meetings of the SAC and share responsibility with the Director for the distribution of an agenda and appropriate documents prior to the annual meeting. He/she shall provide formal reports on any SAC actions or recommendations to the Director of the MBI and the Board of Trustees. The Chair shall serve as a representative of the SAC if needed for formal meetings with sponsors or university officials, at which a SAC presence shall be deemed useful by the Director or the Board of Trustees, or at which a SAC representative shall be requested by the sponsor.
IV. Board of Trustees
The MBI shall have a Board of Trustees (BOT). The Board shall consist of individuals with leadership experience in the public and private sectors, and of recognized scientists in fields related to the MBI activities.
IV.A. Annual Meeting
The BOT will meet annually; in addition, the BOT will hold teleconferences during the year as often as deemed useful. Prior to the annual meeting the Director shall provide the BOT an annual report on the scientific and outreach programs of the institute. The duties of the BOT shall be:
IV.B. Members of the Board
The BOT shall include representatives from the Scientific Advisory Committee, the Institute Partners, and the Industrial Advisory Committee.
Initial members of the BOT shall be appointed by the Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences of OSU for a period of 2-4 years. Thereafter, new Board members shall be elected by a majority vote of current members, and shall serve, under normal conditions, a 3-year term. The BOT may re-appoint members for another term.
IV.C. Chair of the Board
The BOT shall elect a Chair from among its members who shall serve a 2-year term.
The Chair shall moderate all the meetings of the BOT and advise with the Director regarding the distribution of an agenda and appropriate documents prior to the annual meeting. He/She shall provide reports on any BOT recommendations to the Director of the MBI. The Chair shall serve as a representative of the BOT, as appropriate, for formal meetings with sponsors or university officials, at which a BOT presence shall be deemed useful by the Director.
IV.D. Chair for Diversity Issues
The BOT shall appoint one of its members to be in charge of diversity in all its facets. This person shall review and evaluate the institute performance and advise the Director on all matters regarding the full participation of each gender, ethnic, and underrepresented group in every scientific program of the institute.