<p>Hey everyone!</p>
<p>I am a rising sophomore who has enjoyed the Math and Biology courses I have taken during my freshman year. This summer I am working as an undergraduate research assistant for two professors of ecology at my university, who are doing ecological and conservation research (which I really love). Right now I plan on completing a double major in Biology (concentration in ecology) and Math. </p>
<p>What types of careers or grad programs do you think I should look into? I usually hear about Biostatisticians, but statistics just isnt that enjoyable for me. Is that really all thats available for combining both?</p>
<p>What about modeling ecosystems? Do people get paid for doing this? </p>
<p>Im not sure how much this matters but my university does not offer applied math or Statistics, just a Pure/Theoretical Math major.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot for your help!</p>
<p>Try looking into biophysics, maybe that will interest you.</p>
<p>Bioinfo is one possibility. There are plenty of others, but, just like the statistics jobs (I pity you for having uninspiring profs in that field ;)), the job titles may not be uniform or obvious. Math and biology have plenty of other intersections than through statistics (the most obvious one). Protein folding requires some fancy geometry and topology, ecological systems are dynamic systems, thus you get all the stochastic modeling (applied probability without the statistics bit), differential equations, numerical analysis stuff. Graph theory is also widely used in epidemiology and genetics. So, yes, there is tons of math and biology to work with, without going the biostatistics route. Chances are you’ll need some programming skills, so, even if your degree does not officially require it, as I’ve mentioned dozens of time, I highly recommend taking at least two computer science courses (one intro to programming; one on algorithms).</p>