Murray Christian
Postdoctoral Fellow
I am a postdoctoral fellow in MIMMP, working with Dr. Chris Oosthuizen and Prof. Nico de Bruyn. My research focuses on cutting-edge statistical methods to analyse the rich elephant seal dataset from Marion Island. Currently, we are developing integrated population models, which combine different data types in a principled way. These allow us to estimate demographic parameters that are otherwise inaccessible, thus providing further insights into the drivers of elephant seal population dynamics.
By training I am a mathematician, with expertise in differential geometry. I obtained my doctorate, which was closely related to the geometry of soap bubbles, from the University of Cape Town in 2019. Since then I have worked as an applied statistician during a postdoctoral fellowship at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. There my research used Bayesian methods to tackle problems in the biomedical sciences.
Away from equations and code, I’m an avid birder and amateur botanist. I enjoy contributing to citizen scientist projects, and do so quite actively for the Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2, eBird, and iNaturalist.
Email: murraychristian@live.co.za
