Phylogenetic trees are representations of evolutionary relationships amongst species. Interviews of instructors and students have revealed that novice biologists have difficulty understanding phylogenetics. Moreover, misinterpretations of phylogenetics are common among college-level students. In this paper we present Phylo-Genie, a tabletop interface for fostering collaborative learning of phylogenetics. We conducted an experimental study with 56 participants, comparing students' conceptual learning and engagement using Phylo-Genie as: 1) a multi-touch tabletop interface and 2) a pen and paper activity. Our findings show that the tabletop implementation fosters collaborative learning by engaging users in the activity. We also shed light on the way in which our design principles facilitated engagement and collaborative learning in a tabletop environment.

Molecular and computational biologists develop new insights by gathering heterogeneous data from genomic databases and leveraging bioinformatics tools. Through a qualitative study with 17 participants, we found that molecular and computational biologists experience difficulties interpreting, comparing, annotating, sharing, and relating this vast amount of biological information. We further observed that such interactions are critical for forming new scientific hypotheses. These observations motivated the creation of G-nome Surfer, a tabletop interface for collaborative exploration of genomic data that implements multi-touch and tangible interaction techniques. G-nome Surfer was developed in close collaboration with domain scientists and is aimed at lowering the threshold for using bioinformatics tools. A first-use study with 16 participants found that G-nome Surfer enables users to gain biological insights that are based on multiple forms of evidence with minimal overhead.