Dear TDWG List Members -----

Good news! Registration is now open for the conference on Informatics for Phylogenetics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (iEvoBio), at http://ievobio.org/register.html . iEvoBio aims to be a forum bringing together biologists working in evolution, systematics, and biodiversity, with software developers and mathematicians. The goal of iEvoBio is both to catalyse the development of new tools, and to increase awareness of the possibilities offered by existing technologies (ranging from standards and reusable toolkits to mega-scale data analysis to rich visualization). The inaugural meeting in 2010 (see http://ievobio.org/2010) attracted over 300 participants.

The 2-day meeting will take place June 21-22, 2011, in Norman, OK, jointly with the 2011 Evolution Meetings as a satellite conference. The event will feature traditional elements, including a keynote presentation at the beginning of each day and contributed talks, as well as more dynamic and interactive elements, including a challenge, lightning talk-style sessions, a software bazaar, and Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings.

The topic of this year's challenge is Data Integration. Cash prizes will be awarded for first place ($1,000) and runner-up entries. The winning entries will be selected by a vote of the iEvoBio meeting participants. More details about the challenge will be provided in a separate announcement.

Attendees can register jointly for Evolution and iEvoBio at a discount, or only for the iEvoBio conference. For more information about registration, venue, travel, or accommodations please visit the Evolution 2011 website at http://www.evolution2011.ou.edu/. More details about the program and guidelines for contributing content are available at http://ievobio.org . You can also find continuous updates on the conference's Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/iEvoBio , or subscribe to the low-traffic iEvoBio announcements mailing list at http://groups.google.com/group/ievobio-announce . iEvoBio is sponsored by the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) in partnership with the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE) and the Systematic Biologists (SSB). Additional support has been provided by the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).

The iEvoBio 2011 Organizing Committee: Rob Guralnick (University of Colorado at Boulder) (Co-Chair) Cynthia Parr (Encyclopedia of Life) (Co-Chair) Dawn Field (UK National Environmental Research Center) Mark Holder (University of Kansas) Hilmar Lapp (NESCent) Rod Page (University of Glasgow)