Prof. Stephen Leslie is a statistician working in the field of mathematical genetics. He obtained his doctorate from the Department of Statistics, University of Oxford in 2008. After graduating Stephen was a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Statistics at Oxford. He was awarded one of Oxford’s prestigious Nuffield Department of Medicine Scientific Leadership Fellowships. In 2012 Stephen returned to Australia to establish his own research group. Since 2016 Stephen has been at the University of Melbourne, in the Schools of Mathematics and Statistics, and Biosciences, and Melbourne Integrative Genomics. In 2016 Stephen was awarded the Woodward Medal by the University of Melbourne, the University’s highest award for research by faculty. In 2019 Stephen was awarded the Moran Medal of the Australian Academy of Science.

Stephen's work covers several aspects of statistical and population genetics. His main interests are in detecting and controlling for population differences in genetic data; typing complex genetic variation, with a particular focus on immune-associated loci; and performing statistically rigorous analyses of the relationship of genetic variants to disease.