Haley Abel
Mathematics Department, Washington University at St. louis,

Title:
Monte Carlo estimation of effective population size using a forward-backward algorithm

Abstract:
The effective size (N_e) of a population determines its rate of loss of alleles to random genetic drift.  Previous moment-based estimators of N_e exist, but an improved method (due to EC Anderson, EG Williamson, and EA Thompson) allows for maximum likelihood estimation.  The data are modeled as observations from an underlying Wright-Fisher population, and the likelihood curve estimated by a forward-backward derived importance sampler.  Similar methods might be applied to hidden Markov models in a broader context.