NESCent Annual Report, Year 3

YEAR 3 ANNUAL REPORT SUMMARY

During year 3 NESCent continued its maturation as a Center for the promotion of activities leading to a “grand synthesis” in evolutionary biology. The achievements of the Center are detailed in the subsequent sections of this report. Briefly, they include:

• In year 3 the Center functioned with a full complement of postdoctoral fellows and sabbatical scholars. This group contributes to a vital intellectual atmosphere at the Center, and has numerous interactions with visiting working and catalysis groups and the surrounding University communities. They have generated a wide variety of products, including publications, grants, new databases, and analytical tools and software.

• We have hosted a variety of meetings over the past 12 months including over 30 meetings of NESCent funded working, catalysis, informatics and education groups. We have also hosted several additional groups, bringing a total of over 800 scientists to the Center over the past 12 months. NESCent sponsored activities have already contributed to significant advances in evolutionary biology.

• We have an outstanding Informatics program, with excellent staff and the full range of infrastructural services to support our scientific programs.

• The Informatics staff has supported in-house and visiting scientists in a variety of ways, and has partnered with external groups to obtain three external awards (NIH and NSF), with two additional proposals pending.

• The Center, in partnership with the Metadata Research Center at UNC Chapel Hill, has made significant strides towards the development of a data repository for evolutionary biology, DRYAD. A major grant to support his effort has been submitted.

• Our Education and Outreach group has developed new focus for its activities. Efforts are centered on the communication of NESCent science, developing partnerships to improve and support evolutionary biology teaching and research at historically minority serving institutions, and to improve the teaching of evolutionary biology. One major NSF grant to develop innovative curricular materials for evolutionary biology is pending.

• The EOG group has completed a number of highly successful outreach activities, including co-sponsoring a symposium on modern evolutionary biology at the National Association of Biology Teachers annual conference and a program at the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science meeting.

• We have offered a variety of training opportunities and courses, ranging from advanced computational techniques, to a postdoctoral fellow professional development series to a workshop in teaching evolutionary biology to elementary school students.

• We have a broad range of activities directed towards the recruitment of underrepresented groups into evolutionary biology. These activities span all branches of the Center.

• The administrative infrastructure of the Center has made enormous progress, with a new administrative database and redesigned website, and a whole range of procedures, policies and activities developed that allow the Center administration to efficiently and effectively support NESCent sponsored science.