Speaker          :   F.R. McMorris, Chair, Department of Applied Mathematics

Time                 :   Friday, October 6th, 3:00 pm

Location         :  Stuart Building Room # 111 (SB 111) 

In molecular biology, it is common to align a set of molecular sequences so
that aligned positions reflect similar biological influences. With the
alignment fixed, a consensus method can then be used to summarize the
distribution of nucleic or amino acids at each aligned position. Thus,
alignment and consensus are closely related. In this talk I will survey a few
methods and introduce a yet to be implemented algorithmic strategy for
solving the alignment and consensus problem together.

No background in biology will be assumed, and the talk should be accessible
to advanced undergraduate and graduate students

Short bio of the speaker

F. R. McMorris started at IIT on October 1, 1999 as Chair of the Department
of Applied Mathematics. The professional life of Professor McMorris
began in 1969 with a Ph.D. in mathematics awarded by the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 1971 he was looking for things to do
between theorem proving episodes and ended up taking a two-year NIH
post-doctoral fellowship in biomathematics at North Carolina State
University. Since then his work has been primarily applied, using discrete
mathematics to solve problems in biology, data analysis, voting theory,
location theory, theoretical computer science, and other areas. He has
published well over 100 refereed research papers and two books while
obtaining approximately one million dollars in grant funds from the Office
of Naval Research as sole Principal Investigator. Before coming to IIT he
spent 15 years at the University of Louisville where he was Assistant Vice
President for Research, Distinguished University Scholar, Professor of
Mathematics, and Associate in the Department of Industrial Engineering. He
lead the effort at Louisville to create a high profile interdisciplinary
Logistics and Distribution Institute and served as Acting Director for one
year. In the 1980s he also served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics
at Louisville and as Program Manager for Discrete Mathematics at the Office
of Naval Research. Before Louisville, McMorris was a mathematics professor
at Bowling Green State University. He has held visiting appointments at
Rutgers University, Clemson University, University of South Carolina,
University of Central Florida, and Erasmus University Rotterdam. Currently
McMorris also holds a joint appointment as Professor of Computer Science at
IIT.