For the second year in a row, Gonçalo Abecasis, the Felix Moore Collegiate Professor of Biostatistics at the School of Public Health, has been named one of the most influential scientific researchers of the year.
Abecasis appears on the Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch “Who and What Was Hot in Scientific Research in 2012,” which is an annual ranking that recognizes researchers whose published papers “recorded notably higher levels of citations during the previous year.”
Abecasis has been a member of the SPH faculty since 2001. His research focuses on the development of statistical tools and computational methods that enable studies of genetic variation and its connections to human disease. Software and algorithms he has developed are used in human genetic studies around the world.
This past year, he has authored or co-authored 17 papers, including both new methods for using and interpreting genetic data, descriptions of rare genetic variation in up to 14,000 individuals, and applications of his methodology research to improve our understanding of psoriasis, macular degeneration, diabetes, insulin resistance and heart disease, among others.
He has made contributions to the understanding of patterns of genetic variation across the genome, the relationship of these variations to a number of complex traits and diseases and developed algorithms that enable analysis of large challenging datasets. He currently is deploying next-generation sequencing technologies to study the genomes of thousands of individuals.
Mark Newman, Paul Dirac Collegiate Professor of Physics, on the science of networks: “We study how social networks are important in the spread of ideas, fads, fashion, rumors, news, disease, and more.”
The Ann Arbor Summer Festival returns with Top of the Park Rackham stage shows and films, beginning at 7 p.m. June 14 at Ingalls Mall.