The College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine welcomes you to an inaugural lecture showcase event showcasing the work of:
Professor Andrea Wilson - Chair in Infectious Disease Genetics & Mathematical Modelling
Professor Darren Shaw - Personal Chair of Comparative Statistics
Professor Andrea Wilson graduated with an MSc in pure Mathematics at the University of Regensburg, Germany and graduated in 2002 with a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. After her PhD she worked as a research scientist for PIC, one of the world’s leading pig breeding companies. In 2006, Andrea moved back to academia with a Royal Society Industry Fellowship to develop novel mathematical and computational tools for assessing and improving animal health, originally at the Scottish Agricultural College (now SRUC). In 2010, she took up a position as career track fellow in the Roslin Institute, where she progressed to a Personal Chair in Animal Disease Genetics and Modelling in 2018. She currently leads the Roslin Institute Strategic Programme on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases. Andrea’s research group focuses on developing computational models to study how the genetic make-up of animals together with non-genetic factors influence the spread of infectious diseases and harmful behaviour in farmed animals. To achieve real-world impact, she works closely with animal breeders in all major farmed animal species.
“All models are wrong, but some are useful.” In this lecture, Professor Wiilson will use her 30-year journey with mathematical modelling in natural sciences to demonstrate how George Box’ famous quote applies more than ever today.
Professor Darren Shaw graduated with a degree in Zoology and Genetics from the University of Sheffield in 1990. He then moved down to the University of Cambridge to do a PhD in Zoology in wildlife parasites. In 1995, Darren moved to the University of Ghent, Belgium looking at worm infections in cattle and people, before spending 18 months at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels studying worldwide natural disasters. Darren then moved to the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies here in Edinburgh in 2000 to take up a post looking at zoonotic bacterial infections in cows, as well as working on the 2001 Foot-and-mouth outbreak. In 2004, Darren was appointed a Lecturer at the vet school and by 2019 had became a Reader. In 2025, Darren was awarded a Personal Chair of Comparative Statistics. He is involved in facilitating clinical and non-clinical research across the Easter Bush Campus from interns, residents, postgraduate students to fellow colleagues, as well as running the undergraduate Student Research Component of the veterinary undergraduate degree.
Understanding how to present and explore data that is collected by researchers (clinical and non-clinical) is critical in allowing us to tell the stories that our research demonstrates with confidence. Darren will show how he has done that, both with his own research and collaborations, but also by helping others to tell their own stories, be they undergraduate student or senior scientist.
17.00 - 18.30 | Inaugural lectures
18.30 - 19.30 | Drinks reception
This event is free and open to all.
Please indicate any dietary or access requirements when you register to attend.
Lectures are in-person only and will not be live-streamed. Recordings of the lectures will be available after the event.