Dr. Poli part of a team working on a $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant

A Roanoke College professor and collaborators from five other colleges and universities across the country have been awarded a $2.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation to promote and facilitate the use of math in the biology classroom.

Dr. DorothyBelle Poli, associate professor of biology, will be working on the design, promotion and use of a central online hub for biologists and mathematicians to collaborate to improve students' understanding of quantitative reasoning. Poli also is working on the business end of the joint venture.

"Quantitative skills are among the core competencies for career success in the biological sciences," Poli says. "Unfortunately, the widespread incorporation of quantitative skills in biology has been slowed by poor communications among quantitative biology educators and an academic reward system that places less value on better teaching than on traditional research."

That is about to change if this collaboration of educators - QUBES (Quantitative Undergraduate Biology Education and Synthesis) - has any say in the matter, says Poli. The collaboration includes Poli and educators from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Pittsburgh, the College of William and Mary, Radford University and Unity College."

The QUBES team is optimistic that by making it easier for people involved in math-biology education to interact, QUBES will encourage faculty to create new ways of increasing math literacy in undergraduate biology training," Poli says.

Poli has been teaching at Roanoke College since 2006. She teaches botany, general biology, cell biology, plant diversity, and evolution. Her research interests range from paleobotany to plant physiology. She is also a research associate with the Virginia Museum of Natural History.

Poli is well suited to helping faculty from different disciplines work together. In 2012, she was one of the authors on a paper in the American Biology Teacher. "Drawing on Popular Culture: Using Tattooing to Introduce Biological Concepts" was published with professors from other academic departments: Dr. Matthew Rearick, associate professor of health and human performance, and Dr. Matt Fleenor, associate professor of physics.