Peter Donnelly facts for kids

Sir Peter James Donnelly FRS FMedSci (born 15 May 1959) is a very smart Australian-British mathematician. He is a Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford. He also leads a company called Genomics PLC. Sir Peter is an expert in using math to understand chance, especially in areas like genetics. His research team at Oxford is famous for creating new ways to study genetic information.

Early Life and School

Peter James Donnelly was born and grew up in Brisbane, Australia. His father, Austin Donnelly, was a financial adviser and writer. His mother was Sheila Donnelly. He has two sisters, Sharon and Melda. Melda is a well-known financier in Australia.

Peter went to school at St. Joseph's Christian Brothers College, Gregory Terrace. Later, he studied at the University of Queensland in Australia. He then continued his studies at Balliol College, Oxford in England.

His Work as a Scientist

Sir Peter Donnelly became a professor at Queen Mary, University of London when he was only 29 years old in 1988. He also worked as a professor at the University of Chicago from 1994 to 1996. From 1996 to 2001, he was in charge of the Statistics Department at the University of Oxford.

From 2007 to 2018, he was the Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford. He is also a fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford.

DNA and Genetics Research

Many top scientists who study genetics worked with Sir Peter when they were starting their careers. These include David Balding, Matthew Stephens, and Jonathan Pritchard.

Sir Peter is especially known for helping to understand DNA evidence. This is often used in court cases. He has worked as an expert witness to explain forensic science in criminal trials.

He is also known for working closely with biologists. He has been a big part of several large science projects. These include the International HapMap Project and the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. These projects study human genetics on a very large scale.

In 2015, Sir Peter was chosen to be the Chairman of the Royal Society's Machine Learning Working Group. This group looks at how computers can learn from data.

Awards and Special Honours

Sir Peter Donnelly has received many important awards for his work.

• In 2006, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society. This is a very high honour for scientists in the UK.
• In 2008, he was also chosen as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Other awards and honours he has received include:

• 1980: University Medal from the University of Queensland
• 1980-1983: A special scholarship called the Rhodes Scholarship
• 1995: Elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics
• 2004: Guy Medal in Silver from the Royal Statistical Society
• 2007: The main research paper from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, which Sir Peter led, won several awards. These included The Lancet's Paper of the Year and Scientific American's Research Leader of the Year.
• 2009: Awarded the Weldon Memorial Prize
• 2022: Received an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Melbourne

Sir Peter Donnelly was made a knight in 2019. This means he can use "Sir" before his name. He received this honour for his important work in helping us understand human genetics and diseases.

See also

• R v Adams