2003 Moyal Medal awarded to
Professor Terry Speed

Human genetics and bioinformatics, areas of science made prominent by the successful completion of the human genome project, will play increasingly important roles in biomedical science over the next 100 years.  These disciplines depend on the development of novel methods of statistical analysis, and were the background to the annual Moyal Lecture at Macquarie University on 31 October.

Terry Speed, Professor of Statistics at the University of California at Berkeley for half of each year, and Head of the Division of Bioinformatics at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for the remaining half, discussed a key topic in bioinformatics in this public lecture.

Professor of Statistics at the University of California at Berkeley for half of each year, and Head of the Division of Bioinformatics at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for the remaining half, Terry Speed, explained these and other possibilities in this public lecture.

"In this lecture I will review more than a decade's research on applying certain stochastic models to biological sequence analysis and show how they provide an important tool for discovering certain domains, called motifs, in different sequence segments", Professor Speed said.

Professor Speed is the world's expert on the statistical analysis of microarray data. These data (taken from an entire genome) are the most important genetic data currently being analysed.

Macquarie University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research), Professor Jim Piper, presented Professor Speed with the 2003 Moyal Medal for his contribution to statistical methodology and statistical genetics. He has written more than 150 journal papers covering algebra, probability theory, applied and theoretical statistics, and statistical genetics.

The annual Moyal Lecture honours the late Professor José Enrique Moyal, one of Australia's most remarkable scientists and former professor of mathematics at the Australian National University and Macquarie University. Moyal's insights into the interaction between mathematics, physics and statistics led him to make contributions to these subjects which have had far-reaching ramifications in all three fields.

His wife, Ann, a distinguished historian of science, made the seed donation to Macquarie to set up the annual Moyal lecture and medal. Many of Professor Moyal's past colleagues and students have contributed to the fund.

The lecture series aims to influence and interest graduates and postgraduate students, as well as to provide a meeting ground for researchers in these disciplines from universities in the region.

Associate Professor John Corbett
Department of Mathematics