Dr Barbara Holland

The University of Tasmania

Dr Barbara Holland is an ARC Future Fellow and Lecturer within the School of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Tasmania where she is part of the Theoretical Phylogenetics research group. Her research has focused on applying mathematics and statistics to problems in phylogenetics. She has a particular interest in developing tools that can assess if sequence data is well explained by a simple tree model or if more complex processes such as hybridisation, recombination or convergent selection are at work.

Introduction to Phylogenetic Methods

Molecular sequences provide an excellent source of data for attempting to infer the evolutionary relationships between species. This talk will introduce model-based methods of phylogenetic inference (maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference) and discuss both the strengths and limitations of current approaches.