Department of Mathematics
PEOPLE: Faculty

Simon Tavare

George and Louise Kawamoto Chair in Biological Sciences and Professor (Research) of Biological Sciences, Preventive Medicine and Mathematics

Contact Information
E-mail: stavare@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-8766
Office: MCB 413H

 

Education

  • B.S. Probability and Statistics, University of Sheffield, 7/1974
  • M.S. Probability and Statistics, University of Sheffield, 8/1975
  • Ph.D. Probability and Statistics, University of Sheffield, 5/1979

Academic Appointment, Affiliation, and Employment History

  • Professor, Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, 09/01/1989-  

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests
Statistician-biologist Simon Tavaré studies the evolutionary genetics of primates with anthropologists, DNA chip and sequencing technology with molecular biologists, and the vagaries of cancer with medical scientists--all while advancing his own field of computational biology. His expertise lies in the application of statistics and probability theory to problems arising in molecular biology, human genetics, population genetics, molecular evolution and bioinformatics. He is one of the pioneers of the field of computational biology and has made key contributions in statistical bioinformatics. His most famous work concerns the use of DNA sequence to trace the lineage of a cell, an individual or a species, back through time.
Research Specialties
Statistics, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics

Publications

Journal Article
  • Wilson, M. D., Barbosa-Morais, N. L., Schmidt, D., Conboy, C. M., Vanes, L., Tybulewicz, V. L., Fisher, E. M., Tavaré, S., Odom, D. T. (2008). Species-specific transcription in mice carrying human chromosome 21. Science. Vol. 322 (5900), pp. 434--438.
  • Grover, D., Tower, J., Tavaré, S. (2008). O fly, where art thou?. J R Soc Interface. Vol. 5 (27), pp. 1181--1191.
  • Dunning, M. J., Barbosa-Morais, N. L., Lynch, A. G., Tavaré, S., Ritchie, M. E. (2008). Statistical issues in the analysis of Illumina data. BMC Bioinformatics. Vol. 9, pp. 85.
  • Stranger, B. E., Forrest, M. S., Dunning, M., Ingle, C. E., Beazley, C., Thorne, N., Redon, R., Bird, C. P., de Grassi, A., Lee, C., Tyler-Smith, C., Carter, N., Scherer, S. W., Tavaré, S., Deloukas, P., Hurles, M. E., Dermitzakis, E. T. (2007). Relative impact of nucleotide and copy number variation on gene expression phenotypes. Science. Vol. 315 (5813), pp. 848--853.
  • Tavare, S., Marshall, C. R., Will, O., Soligo, C., Martin, R. D. (2002). Using the fossil record to estimate the age of the last common ancestor of extant primates. Nature. Vol. 416 (6882), pp. 726--729.
  • Yatabe, Y., Tavare, S., Shibata, D. (2001). Investigating stem cells in human colon by using methylation patterns. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. Vol. 98 (19), pp. 10839--10844.

Honors and Awards

  • Fellow (or Equivalent) of National Society in Discipline, Fellow of Academy of Medical Sciences, 2009-  
  • IMS Medallion Lecturer, 2001-  
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, 1998-  
  • IMS Medallion Lecturer, 1993-  
  • Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 1992-  
  • Endowed Chair, George and Louise Kawamoto Chair in Biological Sciences, 9/1/1998-  
  • Fellow, American Statistical Association, 2004  
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