Karen D. Alfrey, Ph.D.
Lecturer, Biomedical Engineering Department
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Contact:
723 W. Michigan St. SL 220H
Indianapolis, IN 46202
(317) 278-2261
kalfrey@iupui.edu
Education:
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Rice University (2000)
M.S. Electrical Engineering, Rice University (1997)
B.S. Electrical Engineering, Cornell University (1993)
Postdoctoral training:
Dept of Biomedical Engineering, IUPUI (2002 – 2005)
Research area : computational biology; neuronal modeling; biological control systems
In many biological systems, what is observable and testable experimentally may be limited by the physical parameters of the system: the phenomenon of interest may be too small or too fast to be detectable by available means; it may be inaccessible to experimental tools; or it may be closely coupled to or dependent upon other processes, the effects of which we would like to separate.
Computational modeling provides a framework for testing hypotheses in systems that may be difficult to observe directly or decouple experimentally. A good model, based on available data and appropriate biophysics, may quickly rule out analytically what might be difficult to test physically; or it may suggest additional hypotheses that can be experimentally tested. Modeling and experimentation thus become an integrated, iterative process, with model results leading to new experiments and experimental results providing new data for the refinement of the model. While no model is ever perfect, such iterative refinement represents increased understanding of the system under study.
