Dr Hilde M Herbots

* @ucl.ac.uk

Biographical Details

Hilde is an Associate Professor in the Department of Statistical Science, UCL. She has a PhD in Statistics from the University of London for a thesis which was concerned with stochastic models describing genealogy and genetic differentiation in subdivided populations. She joined UCL in 1994 to work on a consultancy project funded by the Forensic Science Service, studying mitochondrial DNA and its use for forensic identification. She held a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship from 1995 until 1999. Hilde works half-time because of family responsibilities.

Research Interests

Applications of probability theory and stochastic modelling in genetics; epidemic models. 

Selected publications

• Costa RJ, Wilkinson-Herbots HM (2021). Inference of gene flow in the process of speciation: Efficient maximum-likelihood implementation of a generalised isolation-with-migration model. Theoretical Population Biology 140, 1-15.
• Janko K, Pačes J, Wilkinson-Herbots H, Costa RJ, Roslein J, Drozd P, Iakovenko N, Rídl J, Hroudová M, Kočí J, Reifová R, Šlechtová V, Choleva L (2018). Hybrid asexuality as a primary postzygotic barrier between nascent species: On the interconnection between asexuality, hybridization and speciation. Molecular Ecology 27, 248–263.
• Costa RJ, Wilkinson-Herbots H (2017). Inference of gene flow in the process of speciation: An efficient maximum-likelihood method for the isolation-with-initial-migration model. Genetics 205, 1597–1618.
• Wilkinson-Herbots HM (2012). The distribution of the coalescence time and the number of pairwise nucleotide differences in a model of population divergence or speciation with an initial period of gene flow. Theoretical Population Biology 82, 92–108.
• Wilkinson-Herbots HM (2008). The distribution of the coalescence time and the number of pairwise nucleotide differences in the "isolation with migration" model. Theoretical Population Biology 73, 277-288.
• Stone P, Wilkinson-Herbots H, Isham V (2008). A stochastic model for head lice infections. Journal of Mathematical Biology 56, 743-763.
• Wilkinson-Herbots HM (1998). Genealogy and subpopulation differentiation under various models of population structure. Journal of Mathematical Biology 37, 535–585.