Announcing a special joint meeting of the Statistical Society of Australia, W.A. Branch and the Australasian Region of the International Biometric Society.

The invited speaker is A/Prof. Nicola Armstrong. All visitors are welcome to attend this joint meeting.

Date: Tuesday, 10 August 2021

Time: 6:00PM
Location: Cheryl Praeger Lecture Theatre, The University of Western Australia

Presentation

Investigating Epigenetic Clocks

Associate Professor Nicola Armstrong, Mathematics and Statistics, Curtin University.

An epigenetic clock uses methylation levels to estimate an individual’s age. There is currently a lot of interest in these clocks, including the potential to use them to estimate age in forensics. In this presentation, I will give an overview of how these clocks are developed from a statistical perspective, introduce several well-known epigenetic clocks and discuss how they perform in practice. In particular, we were interested in assessing performance in different cohorts with neurological diseases. Our study highlights some common issues with these types of methods data science and bioinformatics that need to be considered (and often aren’t) when interpreting any findings.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Associate Professor Nicola Armstrong is currently working at Curtin University, as a teaching and research academic in Statistics and Data Science. Dr Armstrong is a statistical bioinformatician who completed her doctoral studies in Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Originally from Perth, she spent several years in the Netherlands before returning to Australia and eventually Perth. She is currently an Associate Professor in Statistics and Data Science at Curtin University. Her research work has centred on the development of statistical methodology and the application of statistics to problems in genetics, genomics and biomedical research.

Refreshments and Dinner

Members and visitors are invited to mingle over wine and cheese from 5:30PM. onwards at the venue.

Following the meeting all are invited to dine with the speaker at 7:30PM (promptly) at Steves Bar and Café (http://www.steves.com.au/), 30 The Avenue, Nedlands. Visitors are welcome. The menu is available here.

Please RSVP for dinner to Mario D’Antuono via email mario.dafwa@gmail.com or via mobile phone (0480 123 071) by 12:00 NOON, Monday 9 August 2021. The evening will include a complimentary first drink, and coffees/tea/cake for dessert on behalf of the two societies.

Meeting directions

The Cheryl Praeger Lecture Theatre is located on the ground floor of the Mathematics building at The University of Western Australia. Its entrance is on the northern side of the building. See: OpenStreetMaps, Google Maps (points to the adjacent Blakers Lecture Theatre).

Parking is free on the UWA Crawley campus after 5:00PM. A convenient place to park is Car Park 18 accessible from Fairway Entry 1.

REMOTE viewing options

For those that cannot attend in-person, the presentation will be streamed live over Zoom. Please register on this page to get the connection details.

For further information please contact the WA Branch Secretary (ssa.wa.secretary@gmail.com).