WEIGHT-OF-EVIDENCE FOR FORENSIC DNA PROFILES

         University of New South Wales,  Sydney,  Australia

                           6th July 2005


                  Instructor: Prof. David Balding


The School of Mathematics, UNSW, proudly presents a one day workshop on
Weight-of-Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiless to be held at UNSW on 6th
July 2005. It is a satellite course to the AMSI sponsored Recent Advances
in Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Markov chain Monte Carlo.

The course instructor will be Prof. David Balding (Centre for
Biostatistics, Imperial College, London, UK).


WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE?

Any student of the interpretation of DNA profile evidence, either to
identify one or more individuals contributing to a crime scene DNA sample,
or to draw inferences about genetic relationships, such as paternity.

WHAT WOULD I GAIN FROM THIS COURSE?

You will learn how to use probabilities to evaluate evidential weight,
including how to calculate the likelihood ratios relevant to different
scenarios, both for identification (including database searches and
mixture profiles) and for relatedness. You will also gain appreciation of
the strengths and limitations of this approach, relative to some
alternative approaches to assessing evidential weight, and its practical
implications in a courtroom. We will also cover some population genetics
relevant to DNA profile evidence, and how to incorporate population
genetics effects.

The workshop will run from 9:30am - 5:30pm on the 6th of July at the
School of Mathematics in the Red Centre, UNSW, (final location to be
announced) with breaks for lunch and coffee. The cost of the course will
be $450 which includes lunch, coffee and a copy of the book
"Weight-of-Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiles" by David Balding.


COURSE CONTENT

The course closely follows the book "Weight of Evidence for Forensic DNA
Profiles(click book for table of contents) Very little background
knowledge is required. Inevitably in practice there will be some advantage
for those who are already familiar with short tandem repeat (STR) DNA
profiles and their forensic applications, or who have had a first course
in probability theory and/or in population genetics, but all these topics
will be briefly introduced for novices. There will be exercises that
require either a calculator or a very good head for numbers.

COURSE INSTRUCTOR

David Balding David Balding has degrees in mathematics from the
universities of Newcastle (Aust.) and Oxford (UK), and has subsequently
worked at the Universities of London and Reading (UK) to develop
mathematical and statistical ideas in genetics and related fields. He is
currently Professor of Statistical Genetics at Imperial College London.
Since 1993 he has occasionally served as an expert witness, primarily
advising on population genetics and statistical aspects of DNA profile
evidence. His publications related to the interpretation of DNA profile
evidence have appeared in forensic science, genetics, law, and statistics
journals. The course will be based on his recently published book
"Weight-of-Evidence for Forensic DNA Profiles" (Wiley, January 2005),
which in turn is based on courses presented to forensic science trainees
in London.


REGISTRATION AND MORE INFORMATION

Visit the Workshop website at:

http://www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~scott/symposium/workshop-djb.html

ORGANISERS

Yanan Fan, David Nott, Scott Sisson (School of Mathematics, UNSW)
Contact Email: biomcmc(at)maths.unsw.edu.au





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Scott Sisson
Department of Statistics      Phone: +61-2-938-57027
School of Mathematics         Fax:   +61-2-938-57123
University of New South Wales Web:   www.maths.unsw.edu.au/~scott
Sydney 2052, Australia

UNSW CRICOS Providor Code: 00098G