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Major goals of the meeting

Major goals of the meeting. Provide an overview of NESCent’s mission and accomplishments Discuss schedule for site visit review and renewal Discuss issues of institutional support Our goal is to have a MOU in place before March 2008 site visit. NESCent History.

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Major goals of the meeting

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  1. Major goals of the meeting • Provide an overview of NESCent’s mission and accomplishments • Discuss schedule for site visit review and renewal • Discuss issues of institutional support • Our goal is to have a MOU in place before March 2008 site visit.

  2. NESCent History 1 – National Call for proposals from NSF to establish a National Center for Evolutionary Synthesis. Loosely based on NCEAS, Ecological Synthesis Center. 2 – Awarded to Triangle Universities in 2004. Awarded in part because of great strength in Evolutionary Biology in the three Universities. 3 – Funding initiated in December 2004. Center reorganized in Fall of 2005 – differences in directions, management and leadership. 4 – First scientific activities in summer of 2005; moved into current offices in the fall of 2005.

  3. NESCent in years 2 & 3 1 – Reaching potential as a place for evolutionary synthesis: full compliment of postdoctoral fellows and sabbatical scholars full set of working groups & catalysis meetings active engagement with the community 2 – > 500 visitors to the center in year 2; > 800 in year 3; ~ 250 scientists funded from the NESCent core grant in year 2; ~ 500 funded in year 3 3 – Informatics program – recruited staff, developed infrastructure, initiated and participated in a number of major cyberinfrastructure initiatives, successfully applied for external funding 4 – EOG group developed new focus for outreach activities more closely tied to the promotion of science of the center 5 – Developed administrative infrastructure to support activities of center

  4. NESCent Organizational Chart August, 2007

  5. Overhead ~ $2.6 million Science & Synthesis ~ $5.8 million Administration & facilities ~ $2.6 million EOG ~ $1.1 m Informatics ~ $2.8 million NESCent core expenses – 5 year allocation

  6. NESCent budget – subdivision 1 11 2 10 3 9 8 4 7 6 5

  7. External funding Duke University ~ $160,000 per year External grants funded: • NSF: Linking Evolution to Genomics Using Phenotype Ontologies (P. Mabee, M. Westerfield, T. Vision) • NESCent Total Direct: $853,338 (subcontract) (June 2007- May 2010) • NIH: Enhancement of the GBrowse Genome Annotation Browser (I. Holmes, L. Stein, T. Vision) • NESCent Total Direct: $300,000 (subcontract) (April 2007 – March 2010) • NIH: Development of the www.EcoliCommunity.org Information Resource (Jim Hu, T. Vision) • NESCent Total Direct: $30,550 (subcontract) (June 2007 – May 2009) Total direct awarded: $1,183,888 External grants pending: • NSF: A Digital Repository for Preservation and Sharing of Data Underlying Published Works in Evolutionary Biology (K. Smith, J. Greenberg, W. Michener, W. Piel) • NESCent Total Direct$1,907,531 (June 2008 – May 2011) • NSF: INTEROP: Creation of an International Virtual Data Center for the Biodiversity, Ecological and Environmental (W. Michener, K. Smith, others) • NESCent Total Direct: $39,535 (subcontract) (January 2008 – December 2010) • NSF: Evolution in the News Podcasts from the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (K. Smith) • NESCent Total Direct Costs: $116,720 (November 2007 – October 2009) Total direct pending: $2,063,786

  8. University budget components

  9. NESCent time schedule • October, 2007 – year 3 annual report due • February, 2008 – site visit self study document due • March, 2008 – year 4 site visit • October, 2008 – renewal application due • Fall, 2008, Duke begin recruitment for full time external Director

  10. Types of institutional commitment • “Budget fluidity” – current budget structure leads to management difficulties. Are there alternative models? • Difficult to have staff shared by institutions • Activities run under different subcontracts subject to different regulations • Institutional support • Triangle sabbatical scholars • Tangible support for Directors • Discretionary support for Center activities

  11. Science & Synthesis Joel Kingsolver (UNC) Mission: To advance synthetic research that addresses fundamental questions in evolutionary biology

  12. NESCent is: • A catalyst and facilitator of synthetic research for evolution • A center for the national and international research community • A great resource for the Triangle

  13. Science Projects:What we support • Catalysis Meetings • Evolution in contemporary human populations: Medical, genetic and behavioral Implications • Selfish DNA and the genetic control of vector-borne diseases • Working Groups • An integrated database for fish evolution: from developmental genetics to phylogenetics • How does cognition evolve?

  14. Science Projects:What we support • Postdoctoral fellows • Phylogeographical Information Science: Linking Phylogenies and Earth history • Building a framework for the study of cultural evolution • Sabbatical Scholars • A community approach to evolutionary theory • Designing and teaching an evolution curriculum for elementary students

  15. Science Projects (through Sep 07) • Catalysis Meetings 10 • Working Groups 20 • Postdoctoral fellows 17 • Sabbatical Scholars 13 • Hosted Meetings >30  > 1000 visiting researchers at NESCent to date

  16. Cross-disciplinarity of Science Projects(through Aug 2007)

  17. Productivity (through Sep 07)

  18. NESCent in the Triangle • Triangle working groups • E.g. Clockwork: Redefining interfaces for molecular biology and paleontology • Triangle scholars • 8 to date (Duke, NCSU, UNC) • Targeted sabbaticals: NC HMUs • John Clamp (NCCU) • Joe Fail (Johnson C. Smith U)

  19. More NESCent in the Triangle • Triangle collaborations • DRYAD (UNC SILS) • Evolutionary Genomics (Duke IGSP) • Darwin Day Symposia • Triangle Participants, Year 3: • Duke 37 • NCSU 19 • UNC 25

  20. People at NESCent (yrs 1-3)

  21. Informatics Todd Vision (UNC) • Support for sponsored science and scientists • Maintaining high-end IT infrastructure • Providing dedicated software developers • Facilitating electronic collaboration • Cyberinfrastructure for synthetic science • Software usability and interoperability • Data availability and exchange • Training • Activities are beyond the scope of individual researchers • In partnership with other major organizations

  22. Generic Model Organism Database (GMOD) Project • Common needs for • Genome biologists who work with phylogenetic data, genetic and phenotypic variation • Evolutionary biologists who are deluged by genomic data • Examples: Heliconius, Mimulus, Lemurs • GMOD is a widely-used OS software suite • Provide a full suite of inter-operable software components for genomic databases • A collaboration of major model organism databases such as Flybase, MGD, SGD, TAIR & Wormbase • NESCent-GMOD partnership • To provide user support and help overcome barriers to adoption within the evolutionary genomics community • To extend functionality of GMOD toolkit for genetic and phenotypic variation, geographic information and phylogenetics • Funded by 2 awards from NIH

  23. Linking evolution to genomics using phenotype ontologies • Two approaches to managing phenotype data • Unstructured, free-form descriptions and character matrices • Statements made using anatomical and trait ontologies, designed to capitalize on the semantic web • In order for evolutionary biologists to use ontologies, we need • Cross-species anatomy, phenotype, and taxonomic ontologies • Curation of legacy phenotype data • Software and database tools for curators and end-users • Funded by a $1.77M NSF Databases & Informatics award • Emerged from a NESCent Working Group • Collaboration with NCBO, high-profile community dissemination activities

  24. Hackathons • Intense collaborative programming sessions • Promote an open-source and open-development model for scientific software • Involve leading scientific software developers from around the world • High-profile and high-impact • Held appx 1/yr O|B|F

  25. Informatics summer courses 2007 Phyloinformatics Summer Course • 10-day hands-on training in scientific programming skills • Taught by int’l team of instructors • Targeted at graduate students/postdocs, particularly women and URMs • Topics • Phyloinformatics • Meta-analysis

  26. Google Summer of Code • Eleven students, each with at least one expert mentor, working remotely around the world on open-source scientific software development • Command-line tools for BioSQL • Tree visualization and editing using Ajax • Phylogenetic APIs in BioJava • Multi-language bindings to the C++ NEXUS Class Library • NeXML for representing NEXUS in XML • XRate user interface and data visualization (2 projects) • Phylogenetic data in GBrowse • Calculation of divergence time priors • Overlaying population frequency data on GoogleMaps/GoogleEarth • Software for making phylogenetically-informed conservation decisions

  27. Dryad: A digital repository for published data in evolutionary biology

  28. Charter journals and societies • American Naturalist (ASN) • Evolution (SSE) • Journal of Evolutionary Biology (ESEB) • Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) • Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) • Molecular Ecology • Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution • Systematic Biology (SSB)

  29. Associate Director Todd Vision Assistant Director Hilmar Lapp Duke staff UNC staff System Administration Jon Auman Web & Gui Xianhua Liu UI/Ontology Research JAmes Balhoff IT Support Jack D’Ardenne Data Models, Middleware Surya Dhullipalla DB Research TBD Data Repository Ryan Scherle GMOD User Support David Clements

  30. Enabling UNC-based efforts • Integrating taxonomic databases for 21st century paleontology • Pat Gensel (UNC), co-organizer • Sponsored by NSF and The Paleontological Society • Toward an international exchange standard for biodiversity co-occurrence data • Bob Peet (UNC) • Sponsored by the SEEK program (Science Environment for Ecological Knowledge)

  31. Education and Outreach Brian Wiegmann (NCSU) • Promote education and research in evolutionary biology occurring here and elsewhere.  • Offer resources for scientists, educators, and the general public to • disseminate knowledge • improve science education • promote the mission of NESCENT

  32. Education and outreach audiences • The scientific community • The education community (at all levels) • Underrepresented Groups

  33. NESCENT Education and Outreach Staff • Kristen Jenkins - Program Manager (AIBS/Duke) • Jory Weintraub - Program Manager (NCSU)

  34. EOG and the Scientific Community Communicating NESCent Science • Journal Articles • Press releases • NESCent Newsletter • NESCent Website

  35. EOG and the Scientific Community Postdoc Professional Development • Effective Teaching series (ongoing) • Career development workshops (applying, interviewing for, negotiating faculty positions) • Communicating science workshops (“Sharing Your Science with the Public”, mentoring) • Teaching Opportunities • Guest Lectures (Duke, UNC-CH, UNC-P, NCSSM, Norfolk State, UPR via videoconference • AMNH Online Evolution Course • Individual consulting (teaching, writing, teaching statements)

  36. EOG and the Education Community • Improving Evolution Education at the Undergraduate Level • National Association of Biology Teachers Evolution Symposium (NABT, Annual Meeting) • Evolution in the News Podcast Project • Elementary Evolution Education Curriculum (J. Fail, Johnson C. Smith University)

  37. EOG and the Education Community Improving Evolution Education at the Undergraduate Level • SELECTION Working Group (John Jungck) • Evolution Across the Curriculum Working Group (Uno and Scotchmoor) • TREE Working Group (Sam Donovan)

  38. EOG and the Education Community Natl. Assoc. Biol. Teachers: Evolution Symposium • Work w/AIBS to plan, organize, facilitate day-long symposium • Dec. 1, 2007 Symposium “Evolution: Human Health and Populations” • Develop, produce, distribute instructional CD-ROM on topic • Videotape symposium for web broadcast • Evaluation

  39. EOG and the Education Community Evolution in the News Podcast Project • Expansion of the “Evolution in the News” program • Working with Elsa Youngsteadt, grad student at NCSU • NSF CCLI (Course Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement) grant submitted • Pilot study in J. Kingsolver’s Fall ’07 “Evolution and Life Class” at UNC • Students will produce Evolution in the News podcasts

  40. EOG and Underrepresented Groups • Working group: Evolution Education at Historically Minority Universities • Evolution and Ecology at SACNAS, Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science • Minority outreach database • Minority Student Scholarships to Attend the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution

  41. EOG and Underrepresented Groups Evolution and Ecology at SACNAS • Organized, facilitated by EOG • Co-sponsored by AIBS, ESA, NCEAS, SSE • Panel discussion: “Exploring Careers in Evolution and Ecology” • Field trip to Univ. of Kansas Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center • Movie Night: Flock of Dodos (screening, followed by guided discussion) • Mentoring and Graduate School Recruiting

  42. Connections of EOG to Triangle/UNC • ???

  43. Summary • NESCent’s activities bring international prominence to the Triangle. • The Center greatly enriches the intellectual environment for local scientists. • Triangle researchers are using the Center to advance their own research • The center enlarges the outreach arm of each institution, particularly to under-represented groups.

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