The 18th International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB 2014)

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This International Conference on Research in Computational Molecular Biology (RECOMB) 2014 is the eighteenth in a series of international conferences in computational molecular biology. Computational biology has become one of the essential tools of modern biological research and RECOMB is one of the oldest and most prestigious conferences in the field. It is arguably the premiere meeting for work on innovative computer science applied to biology. The meeting will be held in Pittsburgh, PA on April 2-5, 2014, jointly hosted by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Funding is requested specifically for student travel awards to support U.S.-based students presenting work at the meeting. While every effort is being made to keep the meeting affordable, cost can nonetheless be an obstacle for potential attendees, especially student attendees. These travel awards will cover registration, hotel, and travel costs for a selected group of student presenters, competitively chosen based on the caliber of their work as assessed by the conference program committee and the individual merit and need of the students. Special attention will be given to women and minority researchers. The conference series aims at attracting research contributions in all areas of computational molecular biology, including work on analyzing genomes and other molecular sequences, understanding the interaction of complicated systems that underlie biological function, working with molecular structures that make up these systems, making sense of biological image data, and advancing the computer models and algorithms needed for all of these tasks. The meeting will feature a prestigious group of keynote speakers, oral presentations chosen from submitted papers by a program committee of top researchers in the field, and poster presentations selected from submitted abstracts. In addition, the meeting will offer ample opportunities for one-on-one interactions between active researchers and students. The proposed travel awards will particularly extend this opportunity to U.S.-based students who might otherwise lack the opportunity to participate in the meeting. The meeting and proposed travel fellowships will have particular value for educational purposes, creating a unique training opportunity for computational biology students who might not otherwise be able to present work at a prestigious international meeting. Particular invitation will be made to women and minority applicants, who remain underrepresented in computational work in general.