Systematic biology is primarily concerned with the construction and interpretation of evolutionary trees. As computational objects, evolutionary trees present a series of challenges many of which are NP-hard optimizations. Several reasonably well known problems are discussed (sequence alignment, general-tree alignment) that raise the core problem of median construction. This problem is followed into less well understood areas (genomic rearrangement, horizontal exchange) presenting interesting challenges for future computational research.

Bio: Ward Wheeler’s research focuses on the systematic relationships among and within insects, crustaceans, and chelicerates and the techniques employed to determine them. His laboratory at the AMNH sequences DNA and reconstructs evolutionary trees to determine how these taxa and their anatomy and DNA have evolved over the past 500 million years. Dr. Wheeler has built a series of high performance cluster computers to analyze these data, some of the fastest used in phylogenetic research in the world. He has developed theory and algorithms to interpret evolutionary patterns of DNA and anatomy. This technology is put to use in the American Museum's quest to link extinct lineages with the DNA, morphology, and behavior of species that survive today. Dr. Wheeler joined the AMNH staff in 1989 and since then has authored over 100 scientific publications, several books and software packages, and has been awarded a US patent in DNA sequence analysis.