Staff Profile:Dr Karen Ayres
- Name:
- Dr Karen Ayres
- Job Title:
- Senior Lecturer
- Responsibilities:
- Director of Undergraduate Studies
- School e-Learning Co-ordinator
- Director, Statistical Advisory Service
- Deputy Admissions Tutor, undergraduate programmes
- Programme Advisor, undergraduate programmes
- Principal Internal Examiner, undergraduate programmes
- Member, School Undergraduate Board of Studies
- Member, Departmental Staff Student Forums (Part 1, Part 2, Parts 3-4)
I am also a STEMNET Ambassador.
- Areas of Interest:
Research interests
My research interests centre around the application of statistics to problems in genetics, including DNA profiling. Areas of research include the development and assessment of formulae for relatedness testing and forensic identification.
Collaborative research
Research with those external to Reading includes analysis of data from prospective studies of shingles patients, and analysis of bryozoan statoblast data.
Teaching interests
My teaching is focused mainly on the area of applied statistics, and I have a particular interest in the use of technology for enhancing students' understanding of material and for marking assessments and providing feedback. In 2010 I was awarded an Early Career University Teaching Fellowship.
Current teaching
- BSc: Data Analysis
- BSc: Epidemiology
- BSc: Skills for Statisticians
- BSc: Forensic Statistics and Genetics / Genetic Data Analysis
- BSc: Communicating Mathematics
- BSc/MSc: Multivariate Data Analysis
- BSc: Statistics Research Project / Time Series Project
- BSc: Epidemiology for Pharmacy and Food & Nutrition students
- Research groups / Centres:
- Publications:
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K.L. Ayres, P. Glaister and C.J. Smith (2012). The benefits of an undergraduate teaching and learning placement scheme in mathematics and statistics. To appear MSOR Connections.
K.L. Ayres and P. Glaister (2012). Setting the right hurdle: progression to the final year of an MMath programme. To appear MSOR Connections.
K.L. Ayres (2011). Anonymous marking of coursework using a Vigenère-type cipher. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42, E156-E159.
S.L. McDonald, P.A. Maple, N. Andrews, K.E. Brown, K.L. Ayres, F.T. Scott, M. Al Bassam, A.A. Gershon, S.P. Steinberg, J. Breuer (2011). Evaluation of the time resolved fluorescence immunoassay (TRFIA) for the detection of varicella zoster virus (VZV) antibodies following vaccination of healthcare workers. Journal of Virological Methods, 172, 60-65.
M.L. Quinlivan, K.L. Ayres, P.J. Kelly, S.P. Parker, F.T. Scott, R.W. Johnson, C. Maple, J. Breuer (2011). Persistence of varicella-zoster virus viraemia in patients with herpes zoster. Journal of Clinical Virology, 50, 130-135.
K.L. Ayres, Y. Talukder, J. Breuer (2010). Humoral immunity following chickenpox is influenced by geography and ethnicity. Journal of Infection, 61, 244-251.
K.L. Ayres and F.M.Underwood (2010). Electronic marking of statistics assessments for biosience students. Bioscience Education, 15, c4.
C.S. Ford, K.L. Ayres, N. Toomey, N. Haider, J. van Alphen Stahl, L.J. Kelly, N. Wikström, P.M. Hollingsworth, R.J. Duff, S.B. Hoot, R.S. Cowan, M.W. Chase and M.J. Wilkinson (2009). Selection of candidate coding DNA barcoding regions for use on land plants. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 159, 1-11.
M.L. Quinlivan, K. Ayres, H. Ran, S. McElwaine, M. Leedham-Green, F.T. Scott and J. Breuer (2007). Effect of viral load on the outcome of Herpes Zoster. Journal of Clinical Microbiology, 45, 3909-3914.
R.N. Curnow and K.L. Ayres (2007). Population genetic models can be used to study the evolution of the interacting behaviour of parents and their progeny. Theoretical Population Biology, 72, 67-76.
R.D. Bagnall, K.L. Ayres, P.M. Green and F.Giannelli (2005). Gene conversion and evolution of Xq28 duplicons involved in recurring inversions causing severe Hemophilia A. Genome Research, 15, 214-223.
K.L. Ayres and W.M. Powley (2005). Calculating the exclusion probability and paternity index for X-chromosomal loci in the presence of substructure. Forensic Science International, 149, 201-203.
K.L. Ayres and D.J. Balding (2005). Paternity index calculations when some individuals share common ancestry. Forensic Science International, 151, 101-103.
K.L. Ayres (2005). The expected performance of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism loci in paternity testing. Forensic Science International, 154, 167-172.
K.L. Ayres and R.N. Curnow (2005). Detecting non-multiplicative genotype relative risks from transmissions of parental alleles to affected children. Journal of Human Genetics, 50, 46-48.
K.L. Ayres and A.D.J. Overall (2004). API-CALC 1.0: a computer program for calculating the average probability of identity allowing for substructure, inbreeding and the presence of close relatives. Molecular Ecology Notes, 4, 315-318.
A.P. Morris, A.D. Pedder and K.L. Ayres (2003). Linkage disequilibrium assessment via log-linear modelling of SNP haplotype frequencies. Genetic Epidemiology, 25, 106-114.
T. Anagnostopoulos, A.P. Morris, K.L. Ayres, F.Giannelli and P.M. Green (2003). DNA variation in a 13 Mb region including the F9 gene: inferring the genealogical history and causal role of a haemophilia B mutation (IVS 5+13 A->G). Journal of Thrombosis & Haemostasis, 1, 2609-2614.
K.L. Ayres (2002). Paternal exclusion in the presence of substructure. Forensic Science International, 129, 142-144.
K.L. Ayres, J. Chaseling and D.J. Balding (2002). Implications for DNA identification arising from an analysis of Australian forensic databases. Forensic Science International, 129, 90-98.
M. Seed, K.L. Ayres, S. Humphries, and G. Miller (2001). Lipoprotein (a) as a predictor for myocardial infarction in middle-aged men. American Journal of Medicine, 110, 22 - 27.
K.L. Ayres and D.J. Balding (2001). Measuring gametic disequilibrium from multi-locus data. Genetics, 157, 413 - 423.
J.R.W. Masters, J.A. Thomson, B. Daly-Burns, Y.A. Reid, W. Dirks, P. Packer, L.H. Toji, T. Ohno, H. Tanabe, C.F. Arlett, L.R. Kelland, M. Harrison, A. Virmani, T.H. Ward, K.L. Ayres & P.G. Debenham (2001). Short Tandem Repeat profiling provides an international reference standard for human cell lines. Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences USA, 98, 8012 - 8017.
J.A. Thomson, K.L. Ayres, V. Pilotti, M.N. Barrett, J.I.H. Walker and P.G. Debenham (2001). Analysis of disputed single-parent/child and sibling relationships using 16 STR loci. International Journal of Legal Medicine, 115, 128-134.
J.A. Thomson, K.L. Ayres, V. Pilotti, M. Barrett, J. Walker and P. G. Debenham (2000). Validation of Multiplex STR Systems for the Investigation of Parentage and Other Familial Relationships. In "Progress in Forensic Genetics 8" (Eds. G.F. Sensabaugh, P.J. Lincoln and B. Olaisen), Elsevier Science.
K.L. Ayres (2000). Relatedness testing in subdivided populations. Forensic Science International, 114, 107 - 115.
K.L. Ayres (2000). A two-locus forensic match probability for subdivided populations. Genetica, 108, 137 - 143.
J.A. Thomson, V. Pilotti, P. Stevens, K.L. Ayres, and P.G. Debenham (1999). Validation of Short Tandem Repeat Analysis for the investigation of cases of disputed paternity. Forensic Science International, 100, 1 - 16.
K.L. Ayres and A.D.J. Overall (1999). Allowing for within-subpopulation inbreeding in forensic match probabilities. Forensic Science International, 103, 207 - 216.
K.L. Ayres and D.J. Balding (1998). Measuring departures from Hardy-Weinberg: a Markov chain Monte Carlo method for estimating the inbreeding coefficient. Heredity, 80, 769 - 777.