Matti Pirinen, PhD, Statistics

Position

Professor of Statistics
Department of Mathematics and Statistics &
Department of Public Health
University of Helsinki, Finland

Director of Life Science Informatics Msc Programme

Research Group Leader
Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM)
University of Helsinki, Finland

Contact: matti.pirinen 'at' helsinki.fi

About

Our research group pages at FIMM.
What do we do?
About FIMM human genomics as a work environment.
Ask for open PhD/postdoc positions and opportunities by email.

(2021) Dynamics of genetic structure of Finland in 1900s

(2017) Genetic structure of Finland before 1950s

Finland 100 years - special stamp

Research

I work with statistical and population genetics. In particular, methodologies related to

genome-wide association studies (both common and rare variants; fine-mapping, multivariate phenotypes).
accounting for heterogeneity across populations/phenotypes/tissues etc.
population genetics in Finland and its application to studies of complex diseases and traits (and stamps!).

I am a member of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Complex Disease Genetics 2018-2025.

Teaching

I have a title of Docent in Statistics at the Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Finland.

Msc programme in Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki

Msc programme in Life Science Informatics, University of Helsinki

Degree programme in Medicine and Dentistry, University of Helsinki

Supervision

PhD dissertations

Previously completed PhD dissertations that I have supervised are listed below.

Name	Year	Title	Supervisors
Drouard, Gabin	2025	Twin designs and multi-omics - a paired approach to unraveling sources of health variation	J. Kaprio (UH), M. Pirinen (UH) & S. Ripatti (UH)
Buchwald, Jadwiga	2025	Genome and phenome-wide analyses of the nicotine metabolite ratio	M. Pirinen (UH) & A. Loukola (UH)
Kerminen, Sini	2021	Fine-scale genetic structure and polygenic scores in Finland	M. Pirinen (UH) & S. Ripatti (UH)
Benner, Christian	2019	FINEMAP: a statistical method for identifying causal genetic variants	M. Pirinen (UH) & S. Ripatti (UH)
Cichonska, Anna	2018	Machine learning for systems pharmacology	J.Rousu (Aalto), T.Aittokallio (UH), M.Pirinen (UH)

Master's theses

I have supervised over 20 Msc theses. Msc students interested in Msc theses in statistics in general, or statistical genetics / statistical population genetics in particular, be in touch by email.

Examples of completed Msc theses that I have supervised at University of Helsinki are listed below.

Name	Year, University	Title
Ottensmann, Linda	2020, UH	Comparing the performance of the gene prioritization methods DEPICT and MAGMA on genome-wide association studies of schizophrenia using the Benchmarker framework
Hautakangas, Heidi	2018, UH	LD Score regression for estimating and partitioning heritability of lipid levels in the Finnish population
Ruotsalainen, Sanni	2017, UH	Univariate and multivariate statistical tests in genetic association studies
Kerminen, Sini	2015, UH	Genetic population structure in Finland: an advantage of haplotype information over independent genetic markers

History

Previous positions

2020-2022. Associate Professor of Statistics at University of Helsinki.
2017-2019. Assistant Professor of Statistics at University of Helsinki.
2015-2020. Academy Research Fellow at FIMM.
2012-2015. Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at FIMM.
2009-2012. Postdoc in Statistical Genetics at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics of University of Oxford
working with Peter Donnelly and Chris Spencer.
A member of the analysis group of WTCCC2.
2004-2009. PhD Student in Statistics at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of University of Helsinki,
supervised by Elja Arjas , Dario Gasbarra and Mikko J Sillanpää.
PhD Thesis (Summary part) Bayesian inference for retrospective population genetics models using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.
2003. Summer trainee at the Nuclear Energy Unit at VTT Finland, modelling fluid dynamics.
2002. Summer trainee at the Inverse Problems Group in Helsinki supervised by Matti Lassas to design MCMC algorithms for X-ray tomography.

Studies

Statistics (Statistical Genetics) at the University of Helsinki (2004-2009).
PhD thesis (Summary part) Bayesian inference for retrospective population genetics models using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods.
Supervised by Elja Arjas , Dario Gasbarra and Mikko J Sillanpää.
Mathematics (Mathematical Logic) at the University of Helsinki (1999-2003).
Master's thesis in Finnish (PDF):
On the cardinality of the set of equivalence classes of analytic and coanalytic equivalence relations in Polish spaces.
Supervised by Jouko Väänänen.

Contact: matti.pirinen'at'helsinki.fi

Updated: 14-Nov-2024