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Over the past 20 years, the explosion of genomic data collection and the cloud computing revolution have made computational and data science research accessible to anyone with a web browser and an internet connection. However, students at institutions with limited resources have received relatively little exposure to curricula or professional development opportunities that lead to careers in genomic data science. To broaden participation in genomics research, the scientific community needs to support these programs in local education and research at underserved institutions (UIs). These include community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and tribal colleges and universities that support ethnically, racially, and socioeconomically underrepresented students in the United States. We have formed the Genomic Data Science Community Network to support students, faculty, and their networks to identify opportunities and broaden access to genomic data science. These opportunities include expanding access to infrastructure and data, providing UI faculty development opportunities, strengthening collaborations among faculty, recognizing UI teaching and research excellence, fostering student awareness, developing modular and open-source resources, expanding course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs), building curriculum, supporting student professional development and research, and removing financial barriers through funding programs and collaborator support. 

The emergence of new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus poses serious problems to the control of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Understanding how the variants originate is critical for effective control of the spread of the virus and the global pandemic. The study of the virus evolution so far has been dominated by phylogenetic tree analysis, which however is inappropriate for a few important reasons. Here we used phylogenetic network approach to study the origin of the VOC202012/01 (Alpha) or so-called UK variant (PANGO Lineage B.1.1.7). The multiple network analyses using different methods consistently revealed that the VOC202012/01 variant was a result of recombination, in contrast to the common assumption that the variant evolved from step-wise mutations in a linear order. The study provides an example for the power and application of phylogenetic network analysis in studying virus evolution, which can be applied to study the evolutionary processes leading to the emergence of other variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as many other viruses.