Portrait of Gilean McVean

Three-quarter length portrait of Gilean McVean, leaning against a white board, taken at the Big Data Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Information and Discovery, at the University of Oxford.

Professor Gilean McVean, professor of statistical genetics, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2016. His research uses mathematical, statistical and computational approaches to learn about fundamental biological and evolutionary processes, particularly recombination, mutation and natural selection, through the study of genetic variation in natural populations. He developed the first statistical method for estimating fine-scale patterns of recombination rate variation from genome-scale genetic variation data. Application of this method led to the first fine-scale genetic map in humans, helped identify the hotspot-positioning gene PRDM9, and has led to discoveries about how recombination evolves.

In 2010, McVean was awarded the Royal Society's Francis Crick Medal, delivering that year's lecture entitled 'Our genomes, our history', and in 2012, he was awarded the University of Oxford's Weldon Memorial Prize.