
BSc (Hons) (Biochemistry) and University Medal, UNSW (1986)
PhD (Molecular Genetics), UNSW (1992)
I am a Senior Lecturer in Bioinformatics and Director of Studies (Bioinformatics Engineering) with the School of Computer Science and Engineering.
My main research interest is in the engineering of computer methods and software to better understand the immune system and especially the basis for the "memory" of the immune system and vaccines.
This includes software for analysing immunoglobulins, both at the genetic level and at the protein level.
I am especially interested in the design of algorithms for analysing large datasets of rearranged immunoglobulin genes for the purpose of understanding genetic variation in these genes, diversity generation events, and binding specificity.
I am also more widely interested in applications of computational methods to molecular biology, especially to gene expression, and, in collaboration with Professor Sri Parameswaran, the development of specialised hardware for bioinformatics analysis.
I am very active in the promotion and advocacy for the disciplines of computational biology and bioinformatics, through involvement in the leading professional societies and conferences in the field:
Program Committee member for conferences and workshops including Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics, International Conference on Bioinformatics (InCoB), GIW, Computational Models for Life Sciences, and International Conference on Intelligent Sensing and Information Processing, International Conference on Artificial Immune Systems
Manuscript reviewer for PLoS Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Briefings in Bioinformatics, BMC Bioinformatics, Journal of Theoretical Biology and Comparative and Functional Genomics
My Research Supervision
I am currently supervising one PhD student in my group, and up to four Honours students per year.
I have previously graduated 4 PhD students and 2 MSc students.
My Teaching
I am Director of Studies for the Bioinformatics Engineering program, and for the Bioinformatics major at UNSW.