PHYLIP was first released in 1980. Here are some people whose participation has been important:

Early programming:

• Jerry Shurman
• Mark Moehring

Distribution of different versions: these people pioneered the various forms of distribution, but all versions are now distributed by us.

• Thomas Wilson (CP/M executables)
• Buz Wilson ([no relation to Tom], DOS executables)
• Willem Ellis (Mac executables)
• Alan Rogers (ftp site)

Important contribution of program code

• Christopher Meacham (UC Berkeley) for FACTOR, predecessors of DRAWGRAM and DRAWTREE.
• Mary Kuhner, Jon Yamato, and Naruya Saitou for contributions of code for the Neighbor-Joining program NEIGHBOR.

Further programming:

• Hisashi Horino (draw program drivers)
• Sean Lamont (draw program drivers, C conversion, fixing workstations and network)
• Akiko Fuseki (much algorithmic programming and C conversion)
• Dan Fineman (consensus tree program, draw program drivers)
• Patrick Colacurcio (tree reading code)
• Daniel Yek, (algorithmic programming)
• Doug Buxton (completion of 3.6b release)
• Lucas Mix (Proml and Promlk)
• Andrew Keeffe (especially interactive tree manipulation programs)
• Mike Palczewski (3.6 release, customization for compilers, GUI, major revision of code base)
• Marissa LaMadrid (testing for bugs)

Current programmers are:

• Ian Robertson
• Eric Rynes
• Elizabeth Walkup

Grant support

Years	granting agency	grant number
2005-2009	NIH NIGMS	R01 GM071639
1999-2003	National Science Foundation	DEB-9815650
1996-1999	National Science Foundation	BIR-9527687
1992-1995	National Science Foundation	DEB-9207558
1992-1994	NIH NIGMS Shannon Award	2 R55 GM41716-04
1989-1992	NIH NIGMS	1 R01-GM41716-01
1990-1992	National Science Foundation	BSR-8918333
1987-1990	National Science Foundation	BSR-8614807
1979-1987	U.S. Department of Energy	DE-AM06-76RLO2225 TA DE-AT06-76EV71005

No thanks to

• US Department of Energy, 1987 ("not interested in phylogenies")
• The reviewers at NSF Systematic Biology panel in 1989 ("rating: Do Not Fund") who were then courageously overruled by program director William Moore.
• NSF Systematic Biology Panel, 1992 ("rating: Do Not Fund")
• 1992 Genetics Study Section of NIH ("rating: 53rd percentile")
• The reviewers at NSF Population Biology in early 2003 who gave my proposal too anemic a rating: ("The work has the potential to define the field for many years to come .... All agreed that the proposal is somewhat vague. There was also some concern that the proposed work is too ambitious.")
• The reviewers at the Genetics Study Section of the NIH in early 2004 who said such nice things about my proposal ("One is likely to look back in 20 years and marvel that these questions were not actively pursued by more theoreticians" and "The first inclination is to give this PI all the money he wants!"), but then proceeded to give my proposal a 30.2 percentile rating. Next time you can tone down the praise as long as you improve the ratings, OK? [Perhaps they listened to this. The next time through, a different panel (the new Genetic Diversity study section), said nice but more restrained things while giving a very high rating to the proposal]

Hero Medal for standing up for us at considerable personal risk to

• William Moore, NSF and Wayne State University

Thanks for helping us find funds to

• Irene Eckstrand, NIH Genetics Study Section
• Peter Arzberger, (then of) NSF Computational Biology

Much helpful advice from

• David Swofford
• Gary Olsen
• Wayne Maddison
• David Maddison
  (if PHYLIP is better in any ways than their programs, it's because they were generous in sharing their techniques).

Inspiration to keep going came from

• Cladistics magazine, for endless negative reviews and disparaging comments. If they liked it I'd worry.

And many thanks to about 300 users for complaints, suggestions, bug fixes, and much more.

... to the PHYLIP home page