2015 SSB Stand-alone meeting

Society of Systematic Biologists Stand-alone meeting 2015

schedule Date & time
20 May 2015 1:00am - 22 May 2015 1:00am

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Description

Society of Systematic Biologists Stand-alone meeting 2015

In addition to its annual joint meeting iEvoBio with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the American Society of Naturalists (ASN), SSB will be holding its first ever standalone meeting at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor May 20-22.

This meeting will feature a series of software demos, workshops and panels designed to encourage one-on-one interactions and in depth discussions. Participants are invited to give lightening talks.

Grants-in-aid are available for attending the meeting, and accomodation will be available via dorm-rooms on the campus of the University of Michigan.
 
Note that attendance will be capped at 300 participants so register early. Likewise, dorm rooms are limited so register early to assure local lodging on campus at a great price.
 

The panel discussions include:

  • Species concepts are outmoded and hinder progress in evolutionary biology (Chris Simon and James Mallet)
  • Molecular dates are reliable and provide a robust foundation for interpreting the history of life (Charles Marshall and Blair Hedges)
  • More data or better models (David Hillis and Antonis Rokas)
  • Accurate inference with comparative methods? The field isn't paying enough attention to learning the limits of what we can know (Wayne Maddison and Cécile Ané)

The workshop topics include:

  • Computational Macroevolution: Analysis and Visualization of Complex Evolutionary Dynamics on Phylogenies (Dan Rabosky)
  • Publishing digital phylogenies: choosing content, formats, repositories and licenses that make trees useful for future work (Karen Cranston)
  • Comparative methods in R (Brian O'Meara)
  • Model-based Biogeographical Analyses: Principles and Practice (Jeet Sukumaran)
  • Species-tree estimation from SNPs to sequences (Laura Kubatko)
  • Interrogating transcriptomic data from processing to analysis (Stephen Smith)
  • Bayesian methods for estimating divergence times (Tracy Heath)
 
Note that these workshops are in addition to a Symposium and Software School that will be offered as a pre-meeting workshop (May 18-19) by Tandy Warnow. The symposium will cover new methods for multiple sequence alignments, genome-scale species tree estimation, phylogenetic network estimation, and metagenomic taxon identification. The software school will include hands-on tutorials in new methods, and taught by the developers of the software. No fee will be charged, and travel awards of up to $500 per person are available.
 

Location

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA