[Colloquium] TTIC Talks: Bonnie Kirkpatrick, UBC

[Liv Leader]

When:     Monday, February 25th at 11 a.m.

Where:    TTIC, 6045 S Kenwood Avenue, 5th Floor, Room #526

Who:      Bonnie Kirkpatrick, UBC

Title:      Biological Models with Combinatorial Spaces

   Probabilistic models are common in biology. Many of the successful
models have been readily tractable, leaving calculations on models with
a combinatorial-sized state space as an open problem. This talk
examines two kinds of models with combinatorial state spaces:
continuous-time and discrete-time Markov chains. These models are
applied to two problems: RNA folding pathways and family genetics.
While the applications are disparate topics in biology, they are
related via their models, the statistical quantities of interest, and
in some cases the computational techniques used to calculate those
quantities.

   Dr. Kirkpatrick is from Montana, a state where the population
density is one person per square mile.  She attended Montana State
University for her undergraduate degree in computer science, before
moving to California.  Once there, she completed her doctoral
dissertation on "Algorithms for Human Genetics" under the supervision
of Richard M. Karp and received her Ph.D. in computer science.  Now she
is at the University of British Columbia doing post-doctoral work with
Anne Condon in the Department of Computer Science.

Host: Jinbo Xu, j3xu at ttic.edu

-- 
Liv Leader
Director of Human Resources and International Affairs

Toyota Technological Institute Chicago
6045 S Kenwood Ave
Chicago, IL 60637
Phone- (773) 702-5033
Fax-     (773) 834-9881
Email-  lleader at ttic.edu
Web-   www.ttic.edu
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