Gilean "Gil" McVean is a professor of statistical genetics

Genetics

Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....

 at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and a fellow of Linacre College, Oxford

Linacre College, Oxford

Linacre College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the UK, currently offering graduate entry only. It is located on St Cross Road at the corner of St Cross Road and South Parks Road, next to the University Parks and opposite the Tinbergen Building, which is shared by...

. He is a member of the 1000 Genomes Project steering committee.

Education and employment

McVean completed his PhD in the Department of Genetics, at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

 with Laurence Hurst

Laurence Hurst

Laurence D. Hurst is a Professor of Evolutionary Genetics in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at The University of Bath. Hurst completed his Bachelor of Arts in Zoology at Churchill College, Cambridge in 1987. After a year at Harvard University he returned to the UK, obtaining a D.Phil at...

 in 1997. He then completed a postdoc at the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

 under the supervision of Brian Charlesworth

Brian Charlesworth

Professor Brian Charlesworth FRS is a British evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, and editor of Biology Letters....

 and Deborah Charlesworth. From 2000-2004 he was a Royal Society

Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

 University Research Fellow, in the Department of Statistics at Oxford, where he has also been a University lecturer in Mathematical Genetics since 2004.

His research focuses on population genetics

Population genetics

Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...

 and evolutionary biology including the International HapMap Project

International HapMap Project

The International HapMap Project is an organization that aims to develop a haplotype map of the human genome, which will describe the common patterns of human genetic variation. HapMap is a key resource for researchers to find genetic variants affecting health, disease and responses to drugs and...

, recombination rates in the human genome

Human genome

The human genome is the genome of Homo sapiens, which is stored on 23 chromosome pairs plus the small mitochondrial DNA. 22 of the 23 chromosomes are autosomal chromosome pairs, while the remaining pair is sex-determining...

 and the 1000 Genomes Project.