I am currently pursuing a PhD in Statistics at Trinity College, University of Dublin with supervisor Prof. Simon Wilson. As of September 2011 I am entering my final year.
My research interests are centred on Bayesian inferential procedures for reliability theory models, with a special interest in application to telecommunications networks.
This work has resulted in a novel modification of an existing MCMC algorithm to enable faster and more accurate Bayesian inference for repairable redundant systems when modelled by phase-type distributions.
Aside from the research contributing to my PhD thesis, I am also interested in probabilistic classification techniques, following an internship at Bell Laboratories where I applied existing methods prior to starting my postgraduate studies. An application paper from that work is currently being reviewed and a technical report outlining a new dimension reduction technique I developed for visualising classification data sets is being prepared.
Before entering research I was Founder and Technical Director of 6 Internet Limited, a server hosting and application development specialist and hold a BA (Hons) in Mathematics from Trinity College, University of Dublin.
Ongoing Projects
PhaseType R Package — An early release of an R package for working with Phase-type distributions. At present, there are two functions for Bayesian inference on Phase-type models, which are high-speed C implementations of MCMC algorithms. The package is available on CRAN.
RStudio AMIs — I am maintaining Amazon Machine Images which make deploying an RStudio Server into the Amazon EC2 service very fast and easy.
CASI 2012 — As one of the organising committee of the Conference on Applied Statistics in Ireland 2012, I've developed the online abstract submission and registration payment system.
STATICA Compute Cluster — This is the small compute cluster of our research group which our PI delegated to me to spec, setup and administrate.
Work
Trinity Statistics Seminar Talk: 'Using the New TCD Statistics Cluster'. Download slides (PDF) and demo files (ZIP).
Durham Risk Day 2011 Talk: 'Inference on Phase-type Models via MCMC with Application to Repairable Redundant Systems'. Slides (PDF).
TCD Statistics Workshop 2011 Talk: 'Markov chain Monte Carlo for Inference on Phase-type Models'. Slides (PDF).
Aslett, L. J. M. & Wilson S. P. (2011), 'Markov chain Monte Carlo for Inference on Phase-type Models', ISI 2011 Proceedings. Paper (PDF).
Poster @ ISI 2011 & BISP 7: 'Markov chain Monte Carlo for Inference on Phase-type Models'. Download poster (PDF) and spotlight talk (PDF).
Trinity Statistics Seminar Talk: 'GPU Programming Basics: Getting Started'.
Poster @ 9th Valencia Meeting: 'Networks with Repairable Redundant Subsystems: Faster Inference for Phase-type Distributions'. Poster (PDF).
Trinity Statistics Seminar Talk: 'Speeding up R: Calling C from R'. Download slides and code (zip).
SMRLO’10 Talk: 'Modelling and Inference for Networks with Repairable Redundant Subsystems'. Slides (PDF).
Aslett, L. J. M. & Wilson S. P. (2010), 'Modelling and Inference for Networks with Repairable Redundant Subsystems', SMRLO’10 Proceedings. Paper (PDF).
Poster and Video: IRCSET Symposium 2009, display to Irish government and general audience of work being undertaken by IRCSET funded researchers. Download poster (PDF) / video (MPEG-4).
University Tutoring
ST4003, Data Mining
I was responsible for writing and delivering the R computer laboratory sessions for the MSISS & Mathematics course on Data Mining run by Dr. Myra O’Regan. Details here.
Lab Supervision
Answering questions and helping undergraduates in numerous computer laboratory courses (R/Minitab/Excel).
Tutorials
Mathematics tutorials for mature first year business/economics students and mature first year science students. Probability & Statistics tutorials for first year undergraduate mathematics students.
Revision Lectures
Writing and delivering first and second year undergraduate short exam revision courses in 'Introduction to Statistics' and 'Probability and Theoretical Statistics' for mathematics students.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) for awarding me a postgraduate scholarship and stipend which enables me to pursue this PhD. I would also like to thank SFI for facilitating my fourth year through the STATICA project.
Contact
If you would like to get hold of me, feel free to email me at ** please enable JavaScript to see it! **
