CURRICULUM VITAE

Simon Y. W. Ho
School of Botany and Zoology
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia

academic record

2006

Doctor of Philosophy (Zoology), University of Oxford
Supervisors: Andrew Rambaut, Alan Cooper, Richard Fortey, & Alexei Drummond

2003

Master of Science (Research), University of Sydney
Supervisors: Lars Jermiin & John Robinson

2002

Bachelor of Science (Advanced) (Honours Class 1 & Medal), University of Sydney
Honours thesis: 100%; weighted average mark: 94%
Supervisor: Lars Jermiin

1998

Sydney Boys' High School


appointments

2008 - Present

Postdoctoral Fellow (Australian Research Council)
School of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University

2006 - 2007

Postdoctoral Fellow (Leverhulme Trust)
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford


TEACHING

2008 - Present

Lecturer
Evolution of Biodiversity and Advanced Genetics, Australian National University

2005 - 2007

Tutor
Evolution & Systematics, Balliol, Christ Church, Exeter, Hertford, New, and St Hilda's Colleges, University of Oxford

2005 - 2007

Laboratory Demonstrator
Statistics, University of Oxford

2002 - 2003

Teaching Assistant
Bioinformatics & Genomics, University of Sydney


GRANTS, HONOURS, AND AWARDS

  Australian National University

  • Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship, Australian Research Council, 2008-2010

  University of Oxford

  • Edward Penley Abraham Cephalosporin Scholarship, Linacre College, 2004-2006
  • Domus Research Prize, Linacre College, 2004-2006
  • Commonwealth Scholarship Research Grant, British Council, 2003-2006
  • Commonwealth Scholarship, British Council, 2003-2006

  University of Sydney

  • A.E. and F.A.Q. Stephens Scholarship, Australian Postgraduate Awards, 2003
  • University Medal in Biology, 2002
  • John H. Elliott Memorial Prize for Best Thesis in Animal Biology, 2002
  • Professor Spencer Smith-White Prize in Biology Honours, 2002
  • G.S. Caird Scholarship in Zoology, 2001
  • Haswell Prize in Biology, 2001

 

JOURNAL ARTICLES

  List of journal articles (with downloadable PDFs)
 

 

BOOKS

  01   Confounding factors in phylogenetic analysis
Ho SYW. 2008. VDM Verlag, Saarbrücken, Germany. 87 pages. ISBN 978-3-639-04610-6.

 


PRESENTATIONS

  Invited Talks

  05   Recalibrating the time-scale of human evolution using mitochondrial DNA
Genetics Society of Australasia Conference, Adelaide, Australia. Jul 2008.

  04   Relaxed molecular clocks and probabilistic calibrations
Session chair, Structural, Functional, and Evolutionary Genomics Conference, Cambridge, UK. Jul 2007.

  03   Bayesian phylogenetic analysis using BEAST
Natural History Museum, London, UK. Jul 2007.

  02   The molecular clock: Theory and application
Biostatistics M.Sc. Course, University of Athens, Greece. Jun 2007.

  01   A biologist's guide to dating, with a discussion of uncorrelated relaxed-clock models
Dating the Tree of Life Symposium, University of Geneva, Switzerland. Sep 2006.


  Other Talks

  08   Recalibrating the time-scale of human evolution using mitochondrial DNA
Session chair, International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology, York, UK. Pending.

  07   Applications of phylogenetics in ancient DNA analysis
Evolution 2007, Christchurch, New Zealand. Jun 2007.

  06   Measuring rates of molecular evolution from ancient DNA
Australasian Evolution Society Conference, Sydney, Australia. Jun 2007.

  05   Testing a Bayesian model of sequence damage using ancient DNA data sets
International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology, Stockholm, Sweden. Sep 2006.

  04   A biologist's guide to dating
Evolution 2006, New York, USA. Jun 2006.

  03   Relaxed-clock phylogenetics
PhyloGroup V, London, UK. Apr 2006.

  02   Phylogenetic inference in a relaxed clock framework
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2005, Auckland, New Zealand. Jun 2005.

  01   Re-evaluating the Cambrian explosion hypothesis
Annual New Zealand Phylogenetics Meeting, Kaikoura, New Zealand. Feb 2003.

 


COMPUTER PROGRAMS AND MANUALS

  03   A Rough Guide to BEAST 1.4
Drummond AJ, Ho SYW, Rawlence N, and Rambaut A. University of Auckland, New Zealand.

  02   Sequescence
Ho SYW. University of Oxford, UK.

  01   RateEvolver
Ho SYW. University of Oxford, UK.


 

MEDIA REPORTS ABOUT MY RESEARCH

  08   Not all woolly mammoths were alike
ABC Science, 10 Jun 2008.

  07   Cow explosion down to humans
ABC Science, 16 Apr 2008.

  06   Alumni in focus: Simon Ho
University of Sydney Alumni, 2006.

  05   悉尼華裔科學家推翻'分子時鐘'理論震驚科學界
Australia Daily (Chinese), 31 Jul 2006.

  04   雪梨華裔科學家推翻「分子時鐘」理論
Sing Tao Australia (Chinese), 31 Jul 2006.

  03   Revolutionary thinking on evolution forces rethink on species
Sydney Morning Herald, 29 Jul 2006.

  02   Time Lord
University of Sydney Alumni Magazine, Winter 2006.

  01   Research backs short-term theory of evolution
UniNews, University of Sydney, 3 Jan 2003.

 

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

  Professional Services

  • I have reviewed >45 papers for 16 journals, including Nature, Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, Proceedings of the Royal Society, and Trends in Ecology and Evolution.

  Society Memberships

  • Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution
  • Society of Systematic Biologists
  • Genetics Society of Australasia
  • Australasian Evolution Society
  • The Australian Museum Society