The huge amount of molecular data available nowadays can help addressing new and essential questions in evolution. Answering these questions require efficient and sound mathematical and computational models and tools. The Mathematical and Computational Evolutionary Biology meetings focus on cutting-edge methodological advances in the domain, along with their foremost applications.
The theme of this year's edition will be "Towards better trade-offs between speed and accuracy for the analysis of very large data sets in evolutionary biology". The most realistic models and corresponding inference techniques quite often struggle to cope with the large size of genomic data sets currently available. Compromises thus need to be found that involve using fast but sometimes inaccurate methods/algorithms, or simplifying the raw data through summary statistics. We will discuss the current solutions and stimulate a larger debate on the most appropriate ways to make sense of the wealth of genomic data currently available.
Beyond this year’s theme, general concepts, models, methods and algorithms will be presented and discussed, just as in the previous editions of MCEB. As usual, the meeting will bring together researchers originating from various disciplines: mathematics, computer science, phylogenetics, population genetics, epidemiology, ecological modeling ... Keynote speakers will introduce a field of research and discuss their own work in this field (see below). Afternoon will be for short presentations and posters, with plenty of time for discussions. We will stop early every day, thus leaving time for other activities, such as hiking or swimming. The number of attendees will be limited to favor small group interactions.
