College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Animal Science

Research

My research activities/interests can be grouped into three broad themes:

• Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life for optimization of biological problems
• Computational methods and statistical analysis of high-throughput genomic data
• Evolution, diversity and population genetics

My main research interests are in the development of computational methods for optimization of biological problems; statistical and functional analysis methods for high throughput genomic data (microarrays, SNPs, sequence); estimation of population genetics parameters using genome-wide data; and simulation of biological systems. I am currently involved in a wide range of projects. These include:

• Estimation of recombination rates and functional mapping of hot/coldspots in sheep
• Use of functional knowledge in genomic selection
• Functional integration of GWAS and gene expression data
• Cross-platform comparison and integration of microarrays
• Epistasis modelling using evolutionary computation
• Development of methods to estimate breed composition using SNP data
• Identification of signatures of selection in Hanwoo, Angus and Brahman cattle
• Identification of biomarkers for residual feed intake
• Quality control and development of a pipeline for SNP chip data
• Development of a pipeline for analysis of microarray data
• Estimation of variability and heritability in gene expression
• Statistical and functional analysis for various global profiling projects using microarrays and RNAseq