About

Hello, my name is Oliver A.S. Lyon. I am currently a PhD student at the University of Calgary in the de Koning lab.

My work and research

My areas of interest are primarily focused on how errors propagate, and what we can do with that information. Although that is an abstract description, a more direct description is that my primary PhD work is on developing new Phylogenetic Analysis tools. In phylogenetics errors take the form of mutations, we model the evolutionary pressures on the new mutations to better understand molecular evolution. In another vein I also study Laboratory Quality Control Schema, errors in laboratory medicine have a rippling effect within healthcare. The clinical laboratory provides a peek under the hood for clinicians to examine the current state of a patient’s pathophysiology. Errors in clinical results at best are ignored by clinicians, but at worst are misleading to clinicians during diagnosis, monitoring, and screening.

My background and history

I received my undergraduate degree in computer science from the University of Saskatchewan in 2019. During my time at Usask, I worked in the numerical simulation laboratory . This was a time in my life when I worked to develop new numerical analysis tools for solving complex PDE problems. By the time I left Usask I was working in the bioinformatic laboratory, I worked developing algorithms for identifying and characterizing repeating structures. I left Usask and did my master’s degree at Queen’s University under Kai Salomaa. My research was focused on the computational power of PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction), to accomplish this I worked to narrow the bounds of state complexity of PCR based automata. … The story continues.