Student Profiles
How one biology student found himself among PhD researchers
After completing his third year at CMU, biology student Ryan Bilous presented his team's mathematical biology research alongside graduate students and researchers at a national mathematics conference.
Ryan Bilous is getting used to being mistaken for a PhD candidate in mathematics, even though, in reality, he just finished his third year as a biology undergrad at CMU.
Bilous recently presented his mathematical biology research project at the 2026 Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society conference in Regina, Saskatchewan. His project focused on mathematically modeling neurons in epileptic seizures. The goal of the project was to mathematically predict when benzodiazepines, the first-line drug, should be delivered to prevent a seizure.
The experience pushed him well outside his comfort zone. Most presenters and attendees were master's or PhD students, making Bilous one of the youngest researchers at the conference.
"It gives you an idea of an environment that you never had the opportunity to be in without so many years off...just like increasing your goal," Bilous says.
Bilous says at the end of his presentation, other conference attendees would often ask questions about where he would be publishing and how his thesis differed from the content, "And I was just like, 'no, this is just a project.' So, it puts it into perspective the possibilities of an undergrad, right? To push yourself to the limit and see what you can do, because we're definitely capable," he says.
Like many CMU projects, Bilous was not alone on this. Although his classmates were unable to attend the conference, the project came together under the careful analysis of two other students in the mathematical biology course.
Wanting their project to focus on the medical field, one of the project contributors had a personal connection to epilepsy. After initial research and reading papers on the subject, Bilous says they mapped out some initial frameworks then, suddenly had a "full-blown idea."
"I owe it all to my group mates too," Bilous says. "They put in so much work, and it was so cool to see us like just nail it out of the park."
Although biology is his primary field of study, Bilous credits Tim Rogalsky, Associate Professor of Mathematics, with encouraging him and his group mates to take on research that initially felt beyond their abilities. In the mathematical biology course, Rogalsky encouraged students to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help write code, visualize data, and better understand complex mathematical concepts.
"Tim is looking for master's-level, PhD-level projects, and that's what the expectation was of this course," Bilous says.
"It was challenging, and a lot of the topics were above my head. But the fact that I could use AI to understand it, then also AI to produce the type of results that we did in the amount of time..."
Rather than replacing the learning, Bilous says AI allowed the team to spend more time understanding the mathematics behind their model and interpreting the results.
Looking back, Bilous says the expectations of the course ultimately helped him understand the material far more deeply than classroom lectures alone.
"I think how deep we got into that project—that's what really helped me," he says. "We really went into it, and then I had to explain it to PhDs and master's students at the conference. I think that's what really helped me when it came to understanding the math."
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