Working Group

HIP: Hackathons, Interoperability, Phylogenies

PI(s): Arlin Stoltzfus (Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology)
Enrico Pontelli (New Mexico State University)
Rutger Vos (University of Reading)
Start Date: 1-May-2011
End Date: 30-Apr-2013
Keywords: database, software, meta-analysis, phylogenetics, biodiversity

The potential for synthetic research based on aggregating, integrating, and re-using data is enormous, yet most resources remain interoperable. To realize this potential, software and databases that handle evolutionary trees (and their associated annotations) must be interoperable. Interoperability, in turn, requires tools based on common standards. In the past few years, evolutionary informaticists, with help from NESCent, have been building a software toolbox for solving interoperability problems, based on the EvoIO “stack” of NeXML, CDAO and PhyloWS. This toolbox makes it possible to begin building a worldwide network of interoperable evolutionary resources. The HIP (Hackathons, Interoperability, Phylogenies) aims to use the hackathon mechanism (which we have helped to develop at NESCent) to grow this network directly, by adding links to it, and indirectly, by creating examples for others to follow. To support this project within a working-group budget, we leverage support from strategic partners. Each of the planned series of 3 hackathons will bring together scientific programmers with related challenges. The hackathons target early-career scientists, who often have the most technical expertise and the most potential to pass along their skills and enthusiasm.

Related products

Software and DatasetsPublications
  • Phylotastic! Making tree-of-life knowledge accessible, reusable and convenient Arlin Stoltzfus, Hilmar Lapp, Naim Matasci, Helena Deus, Brian Sidlauskas, Christian M Zmasek, Gaurav Vaidya, Enrico Pontelli, Karen Cranston, Rutger Vos, Campbell O Webb, Luke J Harmon, Megan Pirrung, Brian O'Meara, Matthew W Pennell, Siavash Mirarab, Michael S Rosenberg, James P Balhoff, Holly M Bik, Tracy A Heath, Peter E Midford, Joseph W Brown, Emily Jane McTavish, Jeet Sukumaran, Mark Westneat, Michael E Alfaro, Aaron Steele and Greg Jordan. 2013, Phylotastic! Making tree-of-life knowledge accessible, reusable and convenient, BMC Bioinformatics, volume 14, issue 1, pp. 158
Proposals and Grants
  • Arlin Stoltzfus, Enrico Pontelli and Brian O'Meara. 2014. "Collaborative Research: ABI Development: An open infrastructure to disseminate phylogenetic knowledge". National Science Foundation, 3 years funding from July 2015 to 2018.
Presentations