David Steinsaltz
Dr David Steinsaltz
University Lecturer in Statistics
Tutorial Fellow in Mathematics and Statistics at Worcester College
steinsal at stats.ox.ac.uk or david.steinsaltz at worc.ox.ac.uk
+44 (0)1865 272860 (Department)
+44 (0)1865 272593 (Direct)
+44 (0)1865 272595 (Fax)
+44 (0)1865 288306 (College)
Research interests
Stochastic processes, biodemography, mathematical biology, random dynamical systems, meta-analysis, human sex ratio, hidden Markov models
I am currently interested primarily in biological and demographic questions connected with ageing and mortality. Attempts to understand ageing in a broad biological context, in particular evolutionary models, have suffered at times from antiquated mathematical technology. I am part of a loosely organised international collaborative effort, including laboratory biologists, field biologists, demographers, economists, statisticians, mathematicians, and maybe some others, working to bring modern mathematical and statistical technology to bear on the major theoretical problems of ageing: Why do organisms senesce (i.e., deteriorate in physiological function as they age)? Why do some organisms apparently not senesce? Why do organisms show the patterns of age-related change that they do, and how is this linked to other characteristics of their life course?
The underlying principle of biodemography is that we can begin to answer these questions only by linking a sophisticated understanding of population-level processes to an equally sophisticated model of physiology, with bonds I develop mathematical models, generally of a stochastic nature, for population-level evolutionary processes and for individual physiology; I refine statistical techniques for novel ageing-related experiments, and plan new experiments; I analyse demographic data, both traditional (human vital statistics) and offbeat (damage-splitting in yeast). Most recently, this has led me into an interest in non-stationary hidden Markov models, meta-analysis for complex survey data, and the demography of human gestation.
I also continue to be interested in fundamental questions of stochastic processes, in particular the behaviour of stochastic flows, the asymptotics of killed Markov processes and random fixed points for iterated function systems.
Selected publications
Quasistationary distributions for one-dimensional diffusions (Joint with Steven N. Evans). Trans Amer Math Soc 359:3 (March 2007), pp. 1285--1324.
A generalized model of mutation-selection balance with applications to aging (Joint with Steven N. Evans and Kenneth W. Wachter). Adv Appl Math 35:1 (2005), pp. 16—33.
Understanding mortality rate deceleration and heterogeneity. (Joint with Kenneth W. Wachter). Math Pop Stud, 13:1 (2006), pp. 19—37.
Damage segregation at fissioning may increase growth rates: A superprocess model
(Joint with Steven N. Evans) Theoretical Population Biology 71:4 (June 2007), pp. 473--90.
Chasing balls through martingale fields (Joint with M. Scheutzow) Ann Prob 4/2002, pp. 2046-80.
Biographical Sketch
I moved to Oxford from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, where I was associate professor in the department of mathematics and statistics. Before then I spent four years as a researcher on a K-12 grant in the department of demography at UC Berkeley, following on 2 ½ years in the department of statistics of the same august institution. I was a postdoc at the Technical University of Berlin, and briefly at the Technical University of Delft. I did my PhD in probability theory with Persi Diaconis.
Full list of publications: Demographic research, probability
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