Camille Szmaragd

Research Associate – biostatistics and epidemiology

School of Clinical Veterinary Sciences,
University of Bristol,
Lower Langford,
Bristol,
BS40 5DU, UK.

camille.szmaragd@bristol.ac.uk

About me:

I graduated from the ‘Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Montpellier’ in 2004 with a ‘Diplôme d’Ingénieur Chimiste’ equivalent to a MSc in Chemistry. I spent the last year of my MSc in Cambridge, having started my PhD the previous year in the Genetics department. My PhD project involved studying various aspects of Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) population genomics. The two main chapters of my thesis investigated the population structure of the virus and developing a statistical method to identify disease-related polymorphisms with HBV genome.

Following my PhD, I got a post-doc position as a biostatistician at the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) in Pirbright, developping bluetongue virus (BTV) transmission models. This mainly involved developing a between-farm transmission model to predict BTV spread in Great Britain. I further modified this transmission model to allow the inclusion of control measures, especially various vaccination strategies. This model was applied in cost-benefit exercise commissioned by the Scottish government in 2008, which served as the basis for the BTV control policy in Scotland. Apart from developing BTV spread models and simulating epidemics under various scenarios, I have also helped analysing field experiments (estimating midge biting rate of sheep) and standardising multiplex PCR.

I joined the Animal Behaviour and Welfare group at Langford in November 2008 to work with Bill Browne on identifying factors which could influence the risk of bovine tuberculosis breakdowns in cattle herds in Great Britain. This project mainly involves fitting multilevel models to the data generated during the Randomised Badger Culling Trial. The novelty of the approach we are planning to use is to account for the variation due to spatial structure of the dataset at the levels of both cattle farms and badger social groups. I have also recently started working with the Centre for Multilevel Modelling on the new e-Stat: a quantitative node for ESRC NCeSS programme

Research Interests:

I am interested by a wide range of research topics, which all share as common denominator the use of statistics to answer biological questions. I have a particular interest in developing general methodologies or models to describe biological systems (or at least some aspects of these). As part of this, I have started looking at the possibilities to link climate, epidemiology and socio/economic models through the use of mathematics and statistics.

Publications:

v Gubbins, Szmaragd, et al. (2010). Assessing the consequences of an incursion of a vector-borne disease. I. Identifying feasible incursion scenarios for bluetongue in Scotland. Epidemics 2: 148-154. doi: 10.1016/jepidem.2010.05.001 [article]

v Szmaragd, Gunn and Gubbins (2010). Assessing the consequences of an incursion of a vector-borne disease. II. Spread of bluetongue in Scotland and impact of vaccination. Epidemics 2: 139-147. doi: 10.1016/jepidem.2010.05.002 [article]

v Szmaragd, et al. (2010). The Spread of Bluetongue Virus Serotype 8 in Great Britain and Its Control by Vaccination. PloS ONE 5(2): e9353. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009353.[abstract]

v Szmaragd, et al. (2009). A modeling framework to describe the transmission of bluetongue virus within and between farms in Great Bristain. PloS ONE 4(11): e7741. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007741.[abstract]

v Wilson, Mellor, Szmaragd, Mertens (2009). Adaptive strategies of African horse sickness virus to facilitate vector transmission. Vet. Res. 40(2). [abstract]

v Carpenter, Szmaragd, et al. (2008). An assessment of Culicoides surveillance techniques in northern Europe: have we underestimated a potential bluetongue virus vector? J. App. Ecology 45(4): 1237-45. [abstract]

v Szmaragd, Balloux (2007). The population genomics of hepatitis B virus. Mol. Ecol. 16(22): 4747-58. [abstract]

v Szmaragd, Wilson, et al. (2007). Mortality and case fatality during the recurrence of BTV-8 in northern Europe in 2007. Vet. Rec. 161(16): 571-2. [letter]

v Parsyan, Szmaragd, Allain, Candotti (2007). Identification and genetic diversity of two human parvovirus B19 genotype 3 subtypes. J. Gen. Virol. 88(2): 428-31 [abstract]

v Szmaragd, Foster, et al. (2006). Genome-wide characterisation of hepatitis B mutations involved in clinical outcome. Heredity 97(6): 389-97. [abstract]

v Szmaragd, Nichols, Balloux (2006). A novel approach to characterise pathogen candidate genetic polymorphisms involved in clinical outcome. Infect. Genet. Evol. 6(1): 38-45 [abstract]

Journals for which I have refereed:

Theoretical Population Biology

Interface (journal of the Royal Society)

Gene

Molecular Ecology

PloS one

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society

Animal Welfare

Infection Genetics and Evolution

Veterinary Research

Vaccine

Computer and bioinformatics skills:

During my research I have been using a variety of software and programmes, on which I would be willing to provide help and advice.

v Statistical packages:

While I mainly use R for statistics (and other things), I have also some experience (however sometimes limited) of other statistical packages such as MLwiN, WinBUGS, Matlab, SPSS or Minitab. I have also started learning STATA.