Report from the Summer School in Computational Physiology

The Summer School isnow in its third year, and including this year's group we have a total of 44 graduates from the school. This summer,15 of the students were PhDsand two were Master's students, selected from a pool of international applicants.

The main goal of the Summer School is to promotesuccessful research collaboration between the host institutions, where active orbuddingPhD students get involved in active research projects. The students spent the first part of the course in Oslo, and the second inSan Diego, where the time between the two lecture periodswas spent working on their assigned projects.

During the eight week programme,students complete group-based projects which use computational approaches to address questions that are either clinical in nature or fundamental to the biology of excitable tissues. Through this process the students are challenged to apply and concisely describe the broad principles that they have learned during the first portion of the school, conducted in Oslo. As part of each project, the students work with scientific advisors from both Simula and UCSD, and undertake a workshop in scientific presentation, for which their projects serve as the scientific basis. Each year the projects are extended and revised to progress both their scientific relevance, and improve the educational outcomes for the students. In this way we hope that the accumulated effort of summer school students will, over the years, allow them to make a significant contribution to our broader scientific understanding, as well as to the understanding each student can take away and apply in their own research at their home institutions.

In San Diego the students had the opportunity to live on campus, alternatingbetween daytime research and exploring San Diego -surfing, playing ultimate frisbee, and exploring the night life.