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My First Workshop – Mathematical Models in Biology

This is my first workshop titled Mathematical Models in Biology and I am more than happy to be invited by my two awesome professors: Peter Thomas and Andrew Eckford to travel all the way to Banff. I’ve been to Canada once. It was at least 6 years ago and I visited the Niagra Falls for a day. I’d like to say that this is my first real trip to Canada, and I’ll be spending 5 days at Banff. I decided to document this trip as a student hanging out among the professors and as a clueless tourist.

Day 0 - the day of arrival

I woke up at 7am to catch the flight. My car tires decided that they didn’t like me two nights back, which means I have to spend the next day (the day before the trip) replacing the tires, in addition to packing all my stuff for this trip and later (going to Austin, TX) and getting my unnecessarily long hair trimmed. Thankfully that was all settled at the cost of a few green Benjamin Franklins.

I was flying from Cleveland to Toronto. I suppose there’s no a lot of Clevelanders leaving for Canada, so we got this tiny aircraft – probably the smallest I’ve been on – and was ready to fly. I’m pretty sure I passed out immediately after I sit down and stayed that way until we landed. I do get really bad motion sickness if I read (or eat chocolate chip cookies, oddly) in any vehicle, so there’s not much I else I can do. The odd thing is: the person sitting next to me looks very, and I mean very much like Professor Thomas, but I’m quite sure that it’s not him. Oh well, I guess I’ll have to ask him tomorrow when I see him.

Canada gives a very relaxing vibe to me. It feels familiar because it’s in English (though, you don’t have checking accounts in Canada, you get a Chequing account instead) (it’s like Hamiltonians are not stochastic in quantum mechanics, they are stoquastic) (no wonder why Canadians are good at quantum information sciences), but it feels very different from any United States airport. Everything seems to be at a slower pace, which I really enjoyed. And don’t get me wrong, the airport is very busy, but I don’t feel rushed here. Perhaps it’s just my Canadian stereotype kicking in, but I so far (as in the past 2 hours) am enjoying Canada a lot.

I will be heading to Calgary in a couple of hours, then taking a bus from the airport to the Banff Center (or the Banff Centre to be authentic). It will be at least 10pm Banff time when I settle down, which is 12pm Eastern time. I think at that point, I would be too exhausted to type, but I might upload a few pictures if there are nice views during the ride.

– 08.07.2022 at Toronto Pearson Airport, Gate D38.

Day 1 - the scary day

First, an update on yesterday. I met a fresh MD PhD graduate yesterday at the Toronto airport. Just from the few minutes of talking, I can tell that he’s extremely competent and collected. He reminds me of my roommate in last year, so I really enjoyed talking to him. After the 4 hour flight to Calgary, I had dinner at the 7-11 next to baggage claim. The food is standard. 7-11 hotdogs in the Northan American region will never match the ones in Taiwan :(

Today (or yestderday, as I was to tired to write this last night) was a fun day. I got to meet those I worked with on Zoom in-person! It was very odd knowing a person online for a whole year and finally knowing what the person is like. Zoom camera always distorts the person in some way. Out of all the talks, I liked Oleg’s talk on thermodynamical trade-offs in kinetic proof reading and Zhiyue’s talk on biological sensing and its multiplexing complexity. Lastly, we went on a hike up Tunnel Mountain (see below). Spectacular views and the hike is not difficult. But I guess I was out of shape, that’s why this entry is delayed!

Day 2 - the relaxing day

As I was walking down to the meeting room today, the mountains seemed very unreal. Alex suggested that it is because the contours are so well defined on the mountains that created the illusion of being “pasted” onto the background. Banff is truly magnificient and I recommend everyone to come visit. Again quoting Alex, we humans often think that the world is so small, the grandness of the Earth is only prevalent when you come to places like Banff.

Today’s talk was also great. My favorite was Professor Thomas and Professor Pierbon’s talk on introducing semantics into Shannon’s information theory and Purushottam’s talk on cellular communication conditioning on the cell states. I also really want to learn more about Francesco’s talk on information thermodynamics (or just statistical physics in general).

I also got to talk to more people and learned about the benefits of having twins. Professor Hinczewski said (I forgot if it is an exact quote) “don’t wait on life.” Don’t get too absorbed in academics and live in the present. Looking at the mountains and rivers certainly exaggerates (or simply reminds) the fundamental time scale differences, which gives birth to an appreciation for each moment that I have. Ughh… it’s getting too corny.

Day 3 - the squirrel day

I saw a lot of cute rodent friends today. They are Columbian ground squirrels. They look like squirrels (obviously) but have a not-so-fluffy tail, run on the ground, and lives near their burrows. According to Wikipedia, they are only awake for at most 90 days and asleep otherwise. In some sense, they are really living the life. There are three of these furry fellows in the picture below, can you find them?

Today’s talks were I think the best so far, particularly: Armita’s talk on distributive memory with respect to the dynamics of the sensory input, Alex’s talk on trade-offs of bacterial extinction time in relation to quorum sensing, and Ryan’s talk on an information-theoretic and learning-theoretic view on evolution.

Day 4 - the rest day

It’s odd to have a rest day for a workshop, but Banff is such a pretty place. Professor Thomas, along with other hiking enthusiasts, went on an ambitious hike for the whole day. Down at the Banff center, I attended the subjective information mini-workshop where we discussed how to account semantic variability (prevalent in cells) into Shannon’s theory of information. At the end, it turned into a very nice pep talk by Chris Adami about the academia world.

In the afternoon, I went on a bike ride along the bow river through a golf course. This ride was the highlight of the conference, and it elevated the status of Banff from a great place to one of my favorite places on Earth. Everyone should come to Banff at least once. Pictures (especially mine) don’t do justice. The picture below is one of the better ones I took and (I think) it is an elk I saw.

Day 5 - the last day

The last day was my favorite day in terms of the talks, even though we only got four. I really liked Lea’s talk on large deviation since it is something that I’ve been wanting to learn more about. Also, Javier’s talk on stochastic resetting to random locations was also very intriguing. These are the two papers that I will look into first when I get back to research mode.

This workshop was incredibly fun. I got a whole lot out of it and I think this is a field worth pursuing. I also have to learn a lot more, particularly statistical physics. I also talked to many brilliant people, and it is my goal to be as sharp as them one day. Lastly, Banff is an amazing place. I’ll definitely come back and go to the places I didn’t get to visit this time. Thanks again to Professor Thomas and Professor Eckford for organizing and inviting me, a lowly undergrad, to such an event.