Geometric models of biological phenomena

June 1 to June 5, 2003

at the

American Institute of Mathematics, San Jose, California

organized by

Louis Billera, Susan Holmes, and Karen Vogtmann

Original Announcement

This workshop This workshop will introduce more biologists to tree space and its geometry, find out what kind of questions are of interest to biologists which might be amenable to modelling in tree space, develop biologically reasonable probabilistic and statistical tools to use on tree space. In this workshop we will explore this model from mathematical, biological and statistical perspectives and, more generally, explore similar ways of modelling biological phenomena by geometric methods.

Material from the workshop

A list of participants.

The workshop schedule.

A report on the workshop activities.

Discussion Sessions: (Notes by Francis Su.)

  1. Introduction to Discussion Session Goals
  2. Sunday Discussion on Biological Issues
  3. Monday Discussion on Combinatorial Issues
  4. Tuesday Discussion on Statistical Issues
  5. Wednesday Discussion on Geometric Issues
  6. Thursday Open Discussion

Lecture Notes:

  1. Bridson, Martin: Distances, Spaces, and Curvature with slides.
  2. Diaconis, Persi: What Statisticians Do
  3. Epstein, David: Computing the BHV metric
  4. Epstein, David: The Space of Trees
  5. Felsenstein, Joe: Inference of Phylogenies, with some Thoughts on Statistics and Geometry
  6. Penny, David: An Introduction to Trees and Networks
  7. Sober, Elliot: The Contest Between Parsimony and Likelihood