REU in Computational Phylogenetics

The Warnow Lab hosted an REU program in Computational Phylogenetics, led by Erin Molloy (then a PhD student, now faculty at Univ Maryland Computer Science), in Summer 2019.

The students in the REU program examined the following questions:

• How different methods for phylogeny estimation compare in terms of accuracy on simulated datasets
• How to design new methods that provide better accuracy than current methods
• How to construct species trees from datasets with multiple copies of each gene in each species

The REU students also learned the mathematical foundations of computational phylogenetics by reading the textbook, Computational Phylogenetics: An introduction to designing methods for phylogeny estimation, published by Cambridge University Press (and available for purchase at Amazon and as an E-book at Google Play). Errata are posted as I find them. The image of the Monterey Cypress is there because of the NSF-funded CIPRES project, whose purpose was to develop the methods and computational infrastructure to improve large-scale phylogeny estimation. Why I wrote this book.

The REU program for Computational Phylogenetics is part of the larger REU program hosted by the Computer Science Department at UIUC.