Taming the Beast 2020

Phylogenetics and phylodynamics are central topics in modern biology. Phylogenetic inferences reconstruct the evolutionary relationships between organisms, whereas phylodynamic inferences reveal the dynamics that lead to the observed relationships. These two fields have many practical applications in disciplines such as epidemiology, developmental biology, paleontology, ecology and even linguistics. However phylogenetics and phylodynamics are complex and fast-evolving fields. As such, inference tools are not easily accessible to researchers who are not from a computational background.

Taming the BEAST is a one-week summer school in the Swiss Alps organized by a team from the Computational Evolution group at ETH Zürich. The summer school will focus on the external page BEAST2 software and consists of a mix of invited talks by experts in the field (including several of the core developers of BEAST2), lectures and hands-on tutorial sessions. The aim of the summer school is to equip participants with the skills necessary to confidently perform their own inferences, while providing them with a firm grasp of the theory behind those inferences. Participants are also highly encouraged to bring along their own datasets and to engage with the organizers and speakers to address any problems that they may be experiencing.

The summer school is geared towards graduate students and early-career scientists in the life sciences. Preference will be given to applicants who are not from a computational background and applicants who have already collected/assembled a dataset that they need to analyze.

The registration fee is 900CHF, which includes accommodation and meals. Registration is now open.

Please do not hesitate to contact us via with any questions about the workshop.