Alun Thomas, PhD, BSc

Alun Thomas, BSc, PhD, is a Professor in the Division of Genetic Epidemiology and the Study Design and Biostatistics Center. As a statistician, his research interests include computational statistics, Monte Carlo methods, graphical modeling and genetical statistics.

Thomas has developed statistical methods for pedigree analysis and genetic mapping and was part of the team that discovered the breast cancer susceptibility gene BRCA2. He has also worked on topics in bioinformatics including DNA sequence analysis, assembly, and mutation screening and led the bioinformatic effort to sequence the rice genome. Recent work has included the use of graphical models for linkage disequilibrium problems and for infection modeling.

Thomas received his BSc from Prifysgol Aberystwyth and PhD from Cambridge University. In the past, Thomas served as lecturer in statistics at the universities of Liverpool, Washington and Bath. He was Vice President of Bioinformatics at Myriad Genetics, and Professor of Informatics at the University of Sheffield. He is a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and Chartered Statistician, and a member of International Genetic Epidemiology Society.