Manika Govil

govil@pitt.edu
412-648-9204

Research Assistant Professor, Center for Craniofacial and Dental Genetics, Department of Oral Biology, School of Dental Medicine, University of Pittsburgh

Post-Doc, University of Pittsburgh, 2005-2008
Ph.D., The University of Iowa, 2005
B.A., University of Delhi, 1991

Research Interests

Statistical genetics (methods development and parallel computational techniques for linkage analysis approaches), genetic mapping, craniofacial birth defects (primarily cleft lip and palate), genetics of complex human traits

Research Summary

Dr. Manika Govil is a statistical geneticist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine's Center for Craniofacial and Dental Genetics. Her research interests include the study of complex genetic traits and development of statistical methods to allow linkage analysis and genetic mapping of these traits. Her doctoral research focused on extensions of the posterior probability of linkage (PPL) including development of a distributed computing application for computing the PPL, a study of alternative sequential updating procedures to accommodate for data heterogeneity, exploration of the impact of genetic map misspecification on the PPL and other statistical approaches, and an application of the statistic to a Bayesian reanalysis of cleft lip and/or cleft palate (CL/P) family data. Her current research focus includes gaining fundamental knowledge of craniofacial and dental genetic anomalies, with special emphasis on understanding the etiology, epidemiology and phenotypes of CL/P; as well as continued development and testing of computationally feasible statistical genetic methods for further analysis of these complex craniofacial and dental genetic disorders.