January 28, 2006

Established in December 2004 with funding from the NSF, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) is a collaborative effort whose goal is “to help foster a grand synthesis of the biological disciplines through the unifying principle of descent with modification.”  The Center is based in downtown Durham, North Carolina, and draws from the local expertise of over 90 faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke University, and NC State University who are interested in applying a cross-disciplinary approach toward understanding biological evolution.  The Center hosts postdoctoral fellows and faculty sabbaticals on site, in addition to sponsoring scientific meetings intended to stimulate ideas for new research areas and methodologies.  CCGS/Department of Biology faculty member Todd Vision recently accepted an appointment with NESCent as Associate Director of Informatics.  Vision’s expertise in comparative genomics and computational biology will be applied toward developing new computational methods, integrating existing software and databases, and making them accessible to evolutionary biologists worldwide.

Vision CCGS webpage
Vision lab website