BEACON is an NSF Center for the study of evolution in action.

1. BEACON: An NSF Center for the study of evolution in action

2. BEACON: Bio/computational Evolution in Action CONsortium

3. The Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building at Michigan State University serves as the home for BEACON.

4. 12 populations of E. coli bacteria that are part of a long-term study of evolution in action performed by Richard Lenski at MSU.

5. A Petri dish showing colonies of E. coli bacteria with a genetic marker that allows Lenski and his research team to tell ancestral and evolved bacteria apart in competition assays.

6. MSU Professor Richard Lenski holding samples of frozen bacteria from a study of evolution in action. By freezing bacteria and later reviving them, Lenski and his research team can directly compare bacteria across thousands of generations.

7. This image, from an article in the journal Nature (29 Oct 2009), shows the accumulation of genetic changes (from inner to outer) during 20,000 generations in an E. coli population from Lenski’s long-term study of evolution in action.

8. Schematic illustration of a digital organism that evolved the ability to perform a logic operation, as reported by MSU Professors Richard Lenski, Charles Ofria, and Robert Pennock in an article in the journal Nature (8 May 2003).

9. Studying Evolution of Intelligent Behavior using Digital Organisms and Robots Digital organisms evolving phototaxis A robot using the evolved phototaxis algorithm

10. MSU students use Avida-ED digital evolution education software to study evolution in action

11. BEACON Executive Committee PI’s, Institutional & Industrial Linkages, Crosscutting Themes, EHRD, Diversity Lenski, Ofria, Pennock, Holekamp, Punch, Kerr, Foster, Miikkulainen, Dozier, Cheng, Getty, Pierre, and Ebert-May MSU VP Research & Grad Studies BEACON Director Goodman Management Team Managing Director, Education Director, Diversity Director, Accounts Manager, Admin. Assistant BEACON Director Goodman Management Team Managing Director, Education Director, Diversity Director, Accounts Manager, Admin. Assistant MSU VP Research & Grad Studies Center Management External Advisory Comm. EHRD Steering Committee Chair: Getty. Education Dir., Diversity Dir. (O’Kelly), Assessmt. (Farrell) & Mentoring (Ebert-May) Leads; Partners’ EHRD Leads Industrial Affiliates Mgr: Cheng Diversity Steering Com. Chair: Pierre. Diversity Director (O’Kelly), Diversity Leads from Partner Universities Diversity Initiatives: A Universal Responsibility Permeating the Center Ecological Communities & Collective Dynamics Thrust Group 3 Leads: Dyer (Bio) & McKinley (Comp) Behavior & Intelligence Thrust Group 2 Leads: Holekamp (Bio) & Pennock (Comp) Genomes, Networks & Evolvability Thrust Group 1 Leads: Schmidt (Bio) & Brown (Comp) Research Organization Cross-Cutting Themes: Biological Evolution (Lenski), Digital Evolution (Ofria), Evolutionary Applications (Punch) Multidisc. Training (Torng, Shingleton); Education/Outreach (Getty/Kim) Faculty & Postdoc Development (Ebert-May) N. Carolina A&T Mgr: Dozier Ed. Coord: Graves Div. Coord: Byrd Univ. of Washington Mgr: Kerr Ed. Coord: Swalla Div. Coord: Shou University of Idaho Mgr: Foster Ed. Coord: Soule Div. Coord: Edwards Michigan State University Assessmt. Team Interdisc. Research: O’Rourke EHRD: Farrell U. Texas Austin Mgr: Miikkulainen Ed. Coord. Ellington Div. Coord: Meyers Me Team Members

12. Beacon.msu.edu