Elsa Guillot

Doctor of Philosophy, (Statistics)
Study Completed: 2015
College of Sciences

Citation

Thesis Title
Modelling the role of social structures in population genetics

Read article at Massey Research Online: MRO icon

Modern genetics techniques reveal the journey of mankind, peopling the earth from Africa to New Zealand. Ms Guillot investigated how life in societies, governed by strong marriage rules, influenced population markers. She integrated anthropological knowledge into complex models of populations. Based on simulations and computational methods of statistics, she showed that social rules leave footprints in genetics. This genetic trace was used to partially reconstruct the social history of small Indonesian communities.

Supervisors
Professor Murray Cox
Professor Martin Hazelton

Publications

Guillot, E.G. and M.P Cox. 2014. SMARTPOP: Inferring the Impact of Social Dynamics on Genetic Diversity through High Speed Simulations. BMC Bioinformatics 15:175.

Guillot, E.G., Tumonggor M.K. , Lansing J.S. , Sudoyo H. and Cox M.P.. 2013. Climate Change Influenced Female Population Sizes through Time across the Indonesian Archipelago. Human Biology. 85(1-3). 135-152.