Some photos from this year’s trip to the Mojave desert below.
Book review for Thomson et al. 2016
The first review of the California Herp book has now been published in the Society for Study of Amphibians and Reptiles journal Herpetological Review. You can check it out here.
Bodega 2017
I’ve been spending the week teaching in the Bodega Marine Lab for the 2017 Workshop in Applied Phylogenetics. It’s been a fun week of statistics, phylogenies, data analysis, and beautiful weather. This year, Jeremy Brown (@jembrown) and I put together a new day long session focusing on model selection, model performance, and the challenges of big data in phylogenetics. My slides are available over at treethinkers.org.
The Bodega Cycle
Coffee and an absurdly nice sunrise
Lecture and practicals all day.
Brief pause for bourbon and a beautiful sunset.
Analyze all night. (…rinse repeat).
Spring 2017 lab meeting schedule
- 18 January – Open
- 25 January – Bob
- 1 February – Laci
- 8 February – Robyn
- 15 February – Open
- 22 February – Luke
- 1 March –
AnthonyLaci - 8 March –
MayaJulio - 15 March –
VanOpenAnthony - 22 March –
OpenVan - 29 March – Spring Break
- 5 April – Anthony
- 12 April – Arielle
- 19 April – Stevie
- 26 April – No Meeting – Tester Symposium
- 3 May – Preston, Maya, Melissa
The book is out!
Fall 2016 lab meeting schedule
Sept. 6 – ArtSci opening
Sept. 13 – Amber
Sept. 20 – no meeting (Bob out of town)
Sept. 27 – Van
Oct. 4 – Maya
Oct. 11 – Stevie
Oct. 18 – Luke
Oct. 25 – Anthony
Nov. 1 – Laci
Nov. 8 – no meeting (Election Day)
Nov. 15 – Preston
Nov. 22 – no meeting
Nov. 29 – Megan
Dec. 6 – Robyn
New paper highlighted in Molecular Ecology
Bob and I have a new paper out in the current issue of Molecular Ecology: Assessing the performance of DNA barcoding using posterior predictive simulations. In the same issue, our paper was highlighted in a great ‘Perspective’ piece written by Lucie Zinger and Hervé Philippe. Check them both out!
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Desert Oracle
I’ve got an article on the elusive California Gila monster in the Spring 2016 issue of the Desert Oracle. Check it out.
Tester Symposium 2016
I’m a little late getting to this, but I wanted to put up a quick post about the 2016 Tester Symposium which took place at the end of last week. This year marked the 41st year of this symposium, which supports graduate student research here at the University of Hawaii. It’s three solid days of graduate student talks, two key note lectures by Dolph Schluter (this year’s invited speaker), and capped off with a banquet at the beautiful aquarium in Waikiki.
Emilie spoke about her thesis research this year and was selected as a winner for best talk! This is great news and well deserved.
I was part of the organizational team for this symposium for the previous two years. I found it really nice to be able to kick back and enjoy the symposium a bit more this year. Organizing is fun, but inevitably comes with some stress, and less opportunity to watch the talks.
Awards Banquet at Waikiki Aquarium
Emilie Richards wins best talk award!
Postdoctoral Position Available
We’re looking for a postdoc to join the team. Please share the ad below with any colleagues that may be interested.
Postdoctoral position in phylogenetics and bioinformatics at the University of Hawaii
The Thomson Lab is looking for a postdoctoral researcher to participate in an NSF funded project that seeks to build an archive of Bayesian phylogenetic output and examine the performance of Bayesian estimation of phylogeny for large datasets. The project is a collaboration between the Thomson Lab and the Moore Lab at UC Davis and aims to improve MCMC performance, assess goodness of fit of phylogenetic models, and contribute to the field’s ability to carry out robust Bayesian phylogenetic inference by developing new scientific resources and educational tools. The candidate should have demonstrated experience in phylogenetics and bioinformatics, including programming with SQL, R and/or Python. The selected candidate will join a lab that focuses on phylogenetics, bioinformatics, and conservation in UH’s Department of Biology. The position is based in Honolulu, a vibrant city that is consistently recognized for its diversity, outdoor recreation, and high quality of life.
The start date is flexible, but ideally will be on or before 1 August 2016. Funding is available for two years ($54,000/year, with an additional stipend for health insurance). Application review will begin 1 May. Minimum PhD in Evolutionary Biology (or related field) is required. The University of Hawaii is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer.
To apply, please send CV and names and contact information for three reference to Bob Thomson: thomsonr@hawaii.edu
