Major goals of the meeting

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. NESCent Organizational Chart August, 2007

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. University budget components

10. 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

11. 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

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

13. 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

14. 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?

15. 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

16. 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

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

18. Productivity (through Sep 07)

19. 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)

20. 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

21. People at NESCent (yrs 1-3)

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

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

29. 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)

30. 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

31. 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)

32. 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

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

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

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

36. 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)

37. 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)

38. 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)

39. 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

40. 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

41. 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

42. 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

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

44. 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.