Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Intensive short course on phylogenetic comparative methods in R

We are pleased to announce a new graduate-level intensive short course on the use of R for phylogenetic comparative analysis. The course will be four days in length and will take place at the Hotel Ilha Flata in Ilhabela, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, from the 2nd to the 5th of July, 2015. This course is funded by the National Science Foundation. The course is free of cost; and accommodation at the course venue, as well as breakfast & lunch on all course days, is included for all accepted students. There will be a small number of travel stipends available for qualified students and post-docs. Applicants are welcome from any country, but are especially encouraged from the Latin American region.

Topics covered will include: an introduction to the R environment and programming language, tree manipulation, independent contrasts and phylogenetic generalized least squares, ancestral state reconstruction, models of character evolution, diversification analysis, and community phylogenetic analysis. Course instructors will include Dr. Liam Revell (University of Massachusetts Boston), Dr. Luke Harmon (University of Idaho), and Dr. Mike Alfaro (University of California, Los Angeles). Instruction in the course will be primarily in English, thus all students must have a basic working knowledge of scientific English.

To apply for the course, please submit your CV along with a short (maximum 1 page) description of your research interests, background, and reasons for taking the course. Admission is competitive, and preference will go towards students with background in phylogenetics and a compelling motivation for taking the course. Applications should be submitted by email to ilhabela.phylogenetics.course@gmail.com by May 1st, 2015. Questions can be directed to liam.revell@umb.edu (or posted in the comments section, below).

8 comments:

  1. When are we going to be notified on the results?

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  2. We received over 160 applications for about 12 spots, so I am presently reviewing them. Hopefully soon!

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    1. Wow. That's a lot of people. I'm glad that there're some many students interested in comparative methods. Thank you very much for the information.

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  3. Hi,
    Shall we expect a similar course in 2016?

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. Yes, we intend to. It will be advertised here and elsewhere soon - probably next month.

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  5. All decisions have been made, and applicants not accepted to the course should have been notified. In some cases I know notifications don't get through - due to spam filters or because an incorrect email has been supplied.

    For those of you who applied but were not accepted this time around, please apply next year!

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