[BioRuby] Phyloinformatics Summer of Code 2008 [application deadline: Monday, March 31st]

[Christian M Zmasek]

Phyloinformatics Summer of Code 2008
http://phyloinformatics.net/Phyloinformatics_Summer_of_Code_2008

*** Please disseminate this announcement widely to appropriate students
at your institution ***

The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent: 
http://www.nescent.org/) is participating in 2008 for the second year as 
a mentoring organization in the Google Summer of Code 
(http://code.google.com/soc). Through this program, Google provides 
undergraduate, masters, and PhD students with a unique opportunity to 
obtain hands-on experience writing and extending open-source software 
under the mentorship of experienced developers from around the world.

Our goal in participating is to train future researchers and developers 
to not only have awareness and understanding of the value of open-source 
and collaboratively developed software, but also to gain the programming 
and remote collaboration skills needed to successfully contribute to 
such projects. Students will receive a stipend from Google, and may work 
from their home, or home institution, for the duration of the 3 month 
program. Students will each have one or more dedicated mentors with 
expertise in phylogenetic methods and open-source software development.

NESCent is particularly targeting students interested in both 
evolutionary biology and software development. Project ideas (see URL 
below) range from visualizing phylogenetic data in R, to development of 
a Mesquite module, web-services for phylogenetic data providers or 
geophylogeny mashups, implementing phyloXML support, navigating 
databases of networks, topology queries for PhyloCode registries, to 
phylogenetic tree mining in a MapReduce framework, and more.

The project ideas are flexible and many can be adjusted in scope to 
match the skills of the student. If the program sounds interesting to 
you but you are unsure whether you have the necessary skills, please 
email the mentors at the address below.  We will work with you to find a 
project that fits your interests and skills.

INQUIRIES:
Email any questions, including self-proposed project ideas, to phylosoc 
{at}
nescent {dot} org.

TO APPLY:
Apply on-line at the Google Summer of Code website
(http://code.google.com/soc/2008), where you will also find GSoC program
rules and eligibility requirements.  The 1-week application period for
students opens on Monday March 24th and runs through Monday, March 31st, 
2008.