The Algal Bioinformatics class discusses the phylogeny of shoes as a learning exercise.

Graduate student Charlie Goodman and I have spent the last two weeks teaching a class titled “Algal Bioinformatics in the Context of Climate Change” at Shantou University in Shantou, China. Organized through the Shantou University – Universitá Politecnica delle Marche (Ancona, Italy) Joint Algal Research Center, the class was sponsored by the Shantou University College of Science and the Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology.

49 students registered for the class — about twice what we had originally anticipated — and we spent the last two weeks running them through a whirlwind survey of algal genomics and bioinformatics. It was a truly international class, with students from all over China, as well as Brazil, India, Iran, Japan, Malasia, Pakistan, Thailand, and the United States of America. The students are terrific, and all are working very hard at understanding complex material. China is wonderful, and our hosts have made tremendous efforts to make us feel welcome.