Thursday 10 October 2013

My new position as Honorary Research Associate at UCL

I am very honoured to have been conferred the status of Honorary Research Associate in the the Department of Human Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London. The appointment took effect from 1st July and runs for five years ending on 30th June 2018. The letter confirming my status has only just arrived so I have not been able to announce the news before.

Professor Mark Thomas and Professor David Balding kindly nominated me for this position. I first met them at Who Do You Think You Are? Live in February this year and have worked closely with them since then to help counter some of the inaccurate and sensationalist genetics stories that have appeared in the press while at the same time clarifying the legitimate genealogical applications of DNA testing. My appointment will allow me to have access to the considerable library and e-library facilities at UCL to help with my research, and I will be able to participate in seminars and lab discussions. I very much look forward to the collaboration continuing.

10 comments:

Jennifer Zinck said...

Congratulations, Debbie!

Blondbubble said...

Congratulations, Debbie! Great to hear that your work in the accuracy of genetic genealogy will not only continue, but will be enhanced by further collaboration with colleagues at UCL and its' available resources. Keep up the good work!

Ex DG said...

Congratulations Debbie.

Debbie Kennett said...

Many thanks everyone.

Valmay said...

That's great news Debbie! Congratulations!

Debbie Kennett said...

Thanks Valmay.

Andrew Millard said...

Congratulations Debbie!

Debbie Kennett said...

Thanks Andrew.

Brian Swann said...

I do think this is wonderful news, and I must confess I am a bit jealous! You will find that Mark Thomas has many books on his shelves on population genetics which are not part of most peoples reading backgrounds in this field. For sure that influences how he sees genetic genealogy.

He certainly has thought of himself in the past as a fluent communicator and will go to many academic conferences that we can never get to. But I do strongly believe that a small circle of us can help influence this academic community in ways that were not possible even in the recent academic past. It does open the door to do some genuinely collaborative work with UK population genetics group, and as you will know they are having an ancient DNA facility constructed there at this very moment.

So I look forward to hearing what transpires, and perhaps this can serve as the nucleus of a small group of us with similar interests to try and work more effectively with this academic community than has been possible so far. I take this as a further example that ISOGG and this citizen science community is being taken seriously by academic research in Britain.

Debbie Kennett said...

Thank you Brian. It will indeed be interesting to see what transpires in the next few years. I think there are plenty of opportunities for collaboration between academia and the genetic genealogy community and we can all learn from each other.