SMBE Meeting on Eukaryotic -Omics: April 29-May 2 at #UCDavis

The website is built, speakers have been lined up, and we're ready to announce it to the world:

Myself, along with my former PI Kelley Thomas at the University of New Hampshire, received funding from the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution to host an SMBE Satellite Meeting focused on Eukaryotic -Omics at UC Davis this spring. The meeting dates have been set as April 29-May 2, 2013, and the meeting description is as follows:

The SMBE Satellite Meeting on Eukaryotic -Omics will bring together an interdisciplinary pool of researchers to discuss current efforts, challenges, and future directions for high-throughput sequencing approaches focused on microbial eukaryotes (environmental studies of non-model organisms). The meeting program will encompass investigations of eukaryote biodiversity, ecology, and evolution, using approaches such as rRNA marker genes, shotgun metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and computational biology tools and software pipelines.

See the meeting website (http://www.smbe.org/eukaryotes/) for program announcements, registration details, and travel award information. We're currently in talks to tack on a QIIME workshop at the end of the meeting (tentative dates May 2-4), so keep an eye our for further details. The official conference hashtag will be #SMBEeuks on Twitter.

STEM diversity has been on my mind a lot lately, particularly given the Eisen lab's obsession with equality in gender representation. So I'm very excited to announce that our call for travel award applications includes a heavy focus on diversity--encouraging early-career applicants as well as those from underrepresented groups. Deadline for abstract submission and travel grant applications is Feburary 22, 2013 - mark it on your calendars!