Major goals of the meeting Provide an overview of NESCent’s mission and accomplishments Discuss schedule for site visit review and renewal Discuss issues.

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 History1 – 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.

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 meetingsactive 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 activitiesmore closely tied to the promotion of science of the center

5 – Developed administrative infrastructure to support activities of center

Kathleen Smith, Center Director

Todd Vision, Associate Director

Informatics

Brian Wiegmann,Associate Director EOG

Joel Kingsolver, Associate Director

Science & Synthesis

Karen Henry, Assistant Director

Administration

Hilmar LappAssistant Director

Informatics

ScientificReview Board

Richard O’GradyExecutive Director

AIBS

SeniorAdvisory

Board

Jon AumanSystems Admin Jack D’Ardenne

Computer technician

Xianhua LiuWeb/GUI

Project manager

Jim BalhoffResearch software

Developer

Jory WeintraubScience Education

Manager

Kristin JenkinsScience

CommunicationManager

Barbara MitchellOffice manager

Financial analyst

Jeff SturkeyLogistics Manager

Marcia PainterStaff Assistant

Student workersand temporary

employees

Surya DhullipallaDatabase

programmerDatabase Research

TBD

Ryan ScherleData repository

architect

Dave ClementsGMOD

NESCent Organizational Chart August, 2007

Science & Synthesis~ $5.8 million

Informatics~ $2.8 million

EOG~ $1.1 m

Administration & facilities~ $2.6 million

Overhead~ $2.6 million

NESCent core expenses – 5 year allocation

1

2

3

4

56

7

8

9

10

11

NESCent budget – subdivision

External fundingDuke 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

University budget components

Description Total core grant External funded Total Funded

Duke direct 10,403,812.00$ 10,403,812.00$ Duke indirect 28% 2,041,580.00$ 2,041,580.00$ Duke total 12,445,392.00$ 12,445,392.00$

UNC direct 1,088,219.00$ 1,126,453.00$ 2,214,672.00$ UNC indirect ~ 26%* 287,931.00$ 274,078.00$ 562,009.00$ UNC total 1,376,150.00$ 1,400,531.00$ 2,776,681.00$

NCSU direct 814,815.00$ 814,815.00$ NCSU indirect 46% 278,183.00$ 278,183.00$ NCSU total 1,092,998.00$ 1,092,998.00$

Duke contribution Rent 330,000$ Discretionary Funds 480,000$ Director support 444,000$ Total 1,254,000$

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

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

Science & Synthesis

Mission: To advance synthetic research that addresses fundamental questions in evolutionary biology

Joel Kingsolver (UNC)

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

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?

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

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

Cross-disciplinarity of Science Projects

(through Aug 2007)

Molecular OrganismPopulati

on Phylogeny

Molecular 3 3 6 7

Organism 2 5 7

Population 9 6

Phylogeny 8

Productivity (through Sep 07)Product Sabbat Postdo

cWork Group

Catalysis Mtg

Other

Publications

43(6) 10(6) 19(16)

2(2) 4(5)

Software/ databases

1(3) 7 3(3) 7

Grants (proposals)

3 2 3(5) 3(8) 2(4)

Collaborations

5 8 4 6 9

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)

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

People at NESCent (yrs 1-3)

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

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 NIHQuickTime™ and a

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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

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

Informatics summer courses

• 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

2007 Phyloinformatics Summer Course

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

Dryad: A digital repository for published data in evolutionary

biology

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)

SystemAdministration

Jon Auman

IT SupportJack D’Ardenne

AssistantDirector

Hilmar Lapp

Web & GuiXianhua Liu

Data Models,Middleware

Surya Dhullipalla

Data RepositoryRyan Scherle

UI/OntologyResearch

JAmes Balhoff

DB ResearchTBD

GMOD UserSupport

David Clements

AssociateDirector

Todd Vision

Duke staff UNC staff

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)

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

Education and outreach audiences

•The scientific community•The education community (at all levels)

•Underrepresented Groups

NESCENT Education and Outreach Staff

• Kristen Jenkins - Program Manager

(AIBS/Duke)

• Jory Weintraub - Program Manager (NCSU)

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EOG and the Scientific Community

• Journal Articles • Press releases• NESCent Newsletter

• NESCent Website

Communicating NESCent Science

EOG and the Scientific Community

• 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

Postdoc Professional Development

Guest Lectures (Duke, UNC-CH, UNC-P, NCSSM, Norfolk State, UPR via videoconference

AMNH Online Evolution Course Individual consulting (teaching, writing, teaching statements)

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)

EOG and the Education Community

• SELECTION Working Group (John Jungck)• Evolution Across the Curriculum Working Group

(Uno and Scotchmoor)• TREE Working Group (Sam Donovan)

Improving Evolution Education

at the Undergraduate Level

EOG and the Education Community

• 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

Natl. Assoc. Biol. Teachers: Evolution Symposium

EOG and the Education Community

• 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

Evolution in the News Podcast Project

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

EOG and Underrepresented Groups

• 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

Evolution and Ecology at SACNAS

Connections of EOG to Triangle/UNC

• ???

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.