• Workshops and Computer Labs
• Lectures

Workshops and Computer Laboratory
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The first three days of the Institute will have a significant focus on introducing students and interested faculty to some of the background tools and skills used in the field. This part of the Institute will be led by Prof. Medina and will consist of mathematical/statistical workshops and an intertwined mathematics computer laboratory. The mathematical/statistical workshops will take place in the morning and will focus on topics such as ordinary and partial differential equations; deterministic vs. stochastic dynamical systems; parameter estimation; and linear spaces commonly used in approximations, estimation and numerical error analysis. The workshops will consist of a ninety-minute interactive lecture followed by a ninety-minute problem session where students will work in groups on open-ended problems in population dynamics.

In the afternoon, participants will attend a mathematical laboratory in which they will use the computer algebra system Mathematica and the computational software MATLAB to work through project-like problems grounded on the material from the morning lectures. The afternoon sessions will include numerical, symbolic and graphical simulations of population dynamical systems; symbolic solutions of large linear systems; time series of stochastic systems; and actual parameter estimations using real data.

Lectures
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Starting on Thursday of the first week through Friday of the second week of the PASI, the schedule of activities will consist of eight days of lectures and working sessions where collaborative projects can be proposed and discussed (Thu - Sat and Mon - Fri). A field trip will be planned for Sunday at the end of the first week.

The PASI participants will include a total of 12 lecturers, each of whom will deliver 2 or 3 lectures. A typical day will be organized as follows: