Biologist John Tyson awarded prize for mathematical biology
John Tyson, University Distinguished Professor of Biological Sciences in the College of Science, has been awarded the Arthur T. Winfree Prize by the Society for Mathematical Biology.
The award is given to an individual who has illustrated the close connection between theory and experiment or whose body of theoretical work has led to significant new biological understanding affecting observation and experiments.
Tyson was cited “for his key contributions and mathematical biology pertaining to the mechanism and function of bistability and oscillations in biological systems.” The award noted in particular Tyson’s theoretical studies, based on experimental observations, that illuminate the dynamics of the cell cycle.
The Arthur T. Winfree Prize honors what it calls “one of the legendary figures in the field of theoretical biology, an individual who combined brilliant theory with imaginative and masterful experiments.”
Tyson joined the Virginia Tech faculty in 1977. He earned a Ph.D. in chemical physics at the University of Chicago. He completed postdoctoral work in theoretical biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry and a postdoctoral in biochemistry and cell biology at the University of Innsbruck Medical School.
