For the second installment of MTPB’s software series, Ben Haller of Cornell University spoke about SLiM on March 13, 2024. Ben began by acknowledging the main contributors to the project besides himself. Philip Messer wrote the original SLiM, and Peter Ralph is a major contributor – however, Ben acknowledged that many others have also contributed… Read more

On February 28, 2024, Francois Bienvenu and Mia Miyagi presented on models that have been relevant to their respective research areas. Francois Bienvenu from Laboratoire de Mathématiques de Besançon began with his presentation: “Where do phylogenetic trees come from?” Starting by drawing a basic phylogenetic tree, Bienvenu noted that it is a good structure to… Read more

On February 20, 2024, John Wakeley and Sally Otto spoke with Montgomery Slatkin, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, on how the field of modeling has developed over the years. The following is a summary of their conversation, minimally paraphrased and edited for clarity. Otto: When was… Read more

On January 30, 2024, four panelists from three institutions sat down with Ailene MacPherson to talk about the unique paths of their careers as interdisciplinary researchers. The following is a summary of their conversation, paraphrased and edited for clarity. Give a brief description of your career path, and how you ended up in your department.… Read more

For the second installment of the Modeling & Theory in Population Biology series on January 17, 2024, Bruce Weir presented his talk on applications for population genetics in forensics. He opened with a recent homicide case as an example, in which DNA from the involved weapon’s trigger matched the DNA profile of a person of… Read more

The January 11, 2024 kickoff event of the Modeling & Theory in Population Biology series featured four speakers: Maria Servedio from the University of North Carolina, Marc Feldman from Stanford, Joel E. Cohen from Rockefeller University, and Tanja Stadler from ETH Zürich. This group of speakers reflected the initial inspiration for this program: how diverse… Read more