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Department of Statistics

Dr Kirsty Hassall

I am an Assistant Professor in Applied Statistics, having joined the department in 2024.

For nearly 10 years previously, I have worked as an applied statistician in the agri-environment sector. During this time I have worked on a large variety of projects ranging from applications in molecular biology through to field and landscape studies. This work has covered a broad range of statistical applications from traditional consultancy (mixed models, multivariate statistics, experimental design etc.) through to applied methodological developments (Bayes Nets and elicitation, spatially coherent clustering techniques, defining farm typologies etc.). My current research interests are focussed on how to robustly construct hybrid models that combine empirical, mechanistic and stochastic elements.

Teaching

2024 ST344: Professional Data Science

Professional Membership

2019 Chartered Statistician (Royal Statistical Society)

2017 - 2021 Committee member of the Biritish and Irish Region of the International Biometric Society (IBS-BIR)

2021 - present Secretary of the IBS-BIR

Publications

  • Kirsty L. Hassall, Vasthi Alonso Chávez, Hadewij Sint, Joe Helps, Phillip Abidrabo, Geoffrey Okao-Okuja, Roland G. Eboulem, William J-L. Amoakon, Daniel H. Otron, Anna M. Szyniszewska (2024) Validating a cassava spatial disaggregation model in sub-Saharan Africa, PLOS ONE 19(11): e0312734. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0312734

  • Frédéric Baudron, Jill E Cairns, Stephan M Haefele, Kirsty L Hassall, Thokozile Ndhlela, Isaiah Nyagumbo, Muneta G Manzeke-Kangara, Edward JM Joy (2024) Projecting the Contribution of Provitamin A Maize Biofortification and Other Nutrition Interventions to the Nutritional Adequacy and Cost of Diets in Rural Zimbabwe, The Journal of Nutrition, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tjnut.2024.04.009
  • Kirsty L. Hassall, Frédéric Baudron, Chloe MacLaren, Jill E. Cairns, Thokozile Ndhlela, Steve P. McGrath, Isaiah Nyagumbo, Stephan M. Haefele (2023) Construction of a generalised farm typology to aid selection, targeting and scaling of onfarm research. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, Volume 212 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compag.2023.108074
  • Shewry, Peter; J, Abigail Wood; Hassall, Kirsty L.; K, Till Pellny; Riche, Andrew; Hussain, Abrar; Shi, Zhiqiang; Mosleth, Ellen; Charlton, Mark; Poole, Mervin; Jones, Stuart; Newton, Keith; Penson, Simon; Tucker, Gary; Griffiths, Simon; Hawkesford, Malcolm (2023) Identification of Traits Underpinning Good Breadmaking Performance of Wheat Grown with Reduced Nitrogen Fertilisation. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture. https://doi.org/10.1002/jsfa.12848
  • Tadesse Gashaw Asrat, Ruben Sakrabani, Ronald Corstanje, Timo Breure, Kirsty L Hassall, Fassil Kebede, Stephan M. Haefele (2023) Spectral soil analysis for fertilizer recommendations by coupling with QUEFTS for maize in East Africa: a sensitivity analysis. Geoderma. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2023.116397
  • Imane El Fartassi, Alice E Milne, Maryam Rafiqi, Rafiq El Alami, Kirsty L. Hassall, Toby Wayne, Joanna Zawadzka, Alhousseine Diarra and Ron Corstanje (2023) Evidence of collaborative opportunities to ensure long-term sustainability in African farming. Journal of Cleaner Production, 136170. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136170
  • Frank van den Bosch, Neil McRoberts, Yoann Bourhis, Stephen Parnell, Kirsty L. Hassall (2023) The value of volunteer surveillance for the early detection of biological invaders. Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 560, 111385, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2022.111385
  • Tess Rose, Mark Wilkinson, Claudia Lowe, Jiemeng Xu, David Hughes, Kirsty L. Hassall, Sandeep Amberkar, Clarice Noleto-Dias, Jane Ward, Sigrid Heuer (2022) Novel molecules and target genes for vegetative heat tolerance in wheat. Plant-Environment Interactions, 3, 264– 289. https://doi.org/10.1002/pei3.10096
  • Zeguan Liu, Sjon Hartman, Hans van Veen, Hongtao Zhang, Hendrika Leeggangers, Shanice Martopawiro, Femke Bosman, Florian de Deugd, Peng Su, Maureen Hummel, Tom Rankenberg, Kirsty L Hassall, Julia Bailey-Serres, Frederica Theodoulou, Laurentius Voesenek, Rashmi Sasidharan (2022) Ethylene augments root hypoxia tolerance through amelioration of reactive oxygen species and growth cessation. Plant Physiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/plphys/kiac245
  • J. M. Prout, K. D. Shepherd, S. P. McGrath, G. J. D. Kirk, K. L. Hassall, S. M. Haefele (2022) Changes in organic carbon to clay ratios in different soils and land uses in England and Wales over time. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-09101-3
  • Kirsty L. Hassall, Kevin Coleman, Prakash N. Dixit, Steve J. Granger, Yusheng Zhang, Ryan T. Sharp, Lianhai Wu, Andrew P. Whitmore, Goetz M. Richter, Adrian L. Collins, Alice E. Milne (2022) Exploring the effects of land management change on productivity, carbon and nutrient balance: Application of an Ensemble Modelling Approach to the upper River Taw observatory, UK. Science of the Total Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.153824
  • Maria Oszvald, Kirsty L Hassall, David J Hughes, Adriana M Torres-Ballesteros, Ian Michael Clark, Andrew Bernard Riche, Sigrid Heuer (2022) Genetic diversity in nitrogen fertilizer responses and N gas emission in modern wheat. Frontiers in Plant Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.816475
  • Cairns, Jill; Baudron, Frédéric; Hassall, Kirsty; Ndhlela, Thokozile; Nyagumbo, Isaiah; McGrath, Steve; Haefele, Stephan (2021) Revisiting strategies to incorporate gender intentionality into maize breeding in southern Africa. Outlook on Agriculture. https://doi.org/10.1177/00307270211045410
  • Menard, G. N.; Sandhu, N.; Anderson, D.; Catolos, M.; Kirsty L Hassall; Eastmond, P. J.; Kumar, A.; Kurup, S. (2021) Laboratory phenomics predicts field performance and identifies superior indica haplotypes for early seedling vigour in dry direct-seeded rice. Genomics. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ygeno.2021.11.006
  • Laura Siles Suarez, Kirsty L. Hassall, Cristina Sanchis-Gristch, Peter Eastmond, Smita Kurup (2021) Uncovering the ideal plant ideotype for maximising seed yield in Brassica napus. Frontiers in Plant Science. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.697576
  • Hassall, Kirsty, L., Zawadzka, Joanna, Milne, Alice, E., Corstanje, Ronald, Harris, James, A., Dailey, A. Gordon, Keith, Aidan M., & Whitmore, Andrew P. Putting numbers to a metaphor: Soil Quality, Health or Fitness?https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-477831/v1
  • Kirsty L. Hassall, Alex Dye, Ilyas Potamitis & James R. Bell (2021) Resolving the identification of weak-flying insects during flight: a coupling between rigorous data processing and biology. Agricultural and Forest Entomology. https://DOI:10.1111/afe.12453
  • Wan, Yongfang; Wang, Yan; Shi, Zhiqiang; Rentsch, Doris; Ward, Jane; Hassall, Kirsty; Sparks, Caroline; Huttly, Alison; Buchner, Peter; Powers, Stephen; Shewry, Peter; Hawkesford, Malcolm (2021) Wheat amino acid transporters highly expressed in grain cells regulate grain size and grain nitrogen accumulation. PLOS One. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246763
  • Mesfin Kebede, Martin Broadley, Steve McGrath, Javier Hernandez, Kirsty Hassall, Samuel Gameda, Tilahun Amede, Stephan Haefele (2021) Plant Available Zinc Is Influenced by Landscape Position in the Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Plants. https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10020254
  • Kevin Coleman, Andrew P. Whitmore, Kirsty L. Hassall, Ian Shield, Mikhail A. Semenov, Achim Dobermann, Yoann Bourhis, Aryena Eskandary, Alice E. Milne(2021) The potential for soybean to increase the production of plant-based protein in the UK. Science of the Total Environment. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.144903
  • Peter R Shewry, Kirsty L. Hassall, Heinrich Grausgruber, Annica Andersson, Anna-Maija Lampi, Vieno Piironen, Mariann Rakszegi, Jane L. Ward and Alison Lovegrove (2020) Do modern types of wheat have lower quality for human health? Nutrition Bulletin. https://doi.org/10.1111/nbu.12461
  • Alison Lovegrove, Abigail J Wood, Kirsty L Hassall, Liz Howes, Mervin Poole, Paola Tosi and Peter Shewry (2020) The contribution of fibre components to water absorption of wheat grown in the UK. Cereal Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1002/cche.10316
  • Byoung Min, Louise Salt, Peter Wilde, Ondrej Kosik, Kirsty Hassall, Alexandra Przewieslik-Allen, Amanda Burridge, Mervin Poole, John Snape, Luzie Wingen, Richard Haslam, Simon Griffiths, Peter Shewry (2020) Genetic variation in wheat grain quality is associated with differences in the galactolipid content of flour and the gas bubble properties of dough liquor. Food Chemistry. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fochx.2020.100093
  • Richard P. Haslam; Mary L. Hamilton; Chloe K. Economou; Richard Smith; Kirsty L. Hassall; Johnathan A. Napier; Olga Sayanova (2020) Overexpression of a type 2 diacylglycerol acyltransferase in the marine diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum enhances lipid production and omega-3 Long Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid content. Biotechnology for Biofuels. 13:87. DOI: 10.1186/s13068-020-01726-8.
  • Han, Lihua; Usher, Sarah; Sandgrind, Sjur; Hassall, Kirsty; Sayanova, Olga; Michaelson, Louise; Haslam, Richard; Napier, Johnathan (2020) High level accumulation of EPA and DHA in field-grown transgenic Camelina – a multi-territory evaluation of TAG accumulation and heterogeneity. Plant Biotechnology. https://doi.org/10.1111/pbi.13385
  • Alison Lovegrove, Till K Pellny, Kirsty L Hassall, Amy Plummer, Abigail Wood, Alice Bellisai, Alexandra Przewieslik-Allen, Amanda J. Burridge, Jane L. Ward and Peter R Shewry (2020) Historical changes in the contents and compositions of fibre components and polar metabolites in white wheat flour. Scientific Reports, 10:5920 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-62777-3
  • Danilo H Lyra, Nicolas Virlet, Pouria Sadeghi-Tehran, Kirsty L Hassall, Luzie U Wingen, Simon Orford, Simon Griffiths, Malcolm J Hawkesford, Gancho T Slavov, (2020) Functional QTL mapping and genomic prediction of canopy height in wheat measured using a robotic field phenotyping platform, Journal of Experimental Botany, erz545, https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/erz545
  • Alison Lovegrove; Luzie U. Wingen; Amy Plummer; Abigail Wood; Diana Passmore; Ondrej Kosik; Jackie Freeman; Rowan A.C. Mitchell; Kirsty Hassall; Mehmet Ulker; Karolina Tremmel-Bede; Marianna Rakszegi; Zoltán Bedő; Marie-Reine Petterant; Gilles Charmet; Caroline Pont; Jerome Salse; Michelle Leverington Waite; Simon Orford; Amanda Burridge; Till Pellny; Peter Shewry; Simon Griffiths (2020) Identification of a major QTL and associated molecular marker for high arabinoxylan fibre in white wheat flour. PLoS ONE 15(2): e0227826. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227826
  • Kirsty L. Hassall, Gordon Dailey, Joanna Zawadzka, Alice E. Milne, Jim A. Harris, Ron Corstanje, Andrew P. Whitmore (2019) Facilitating the elicitation of beliefs for use in Bayesian Belief modelling. Environmental Modelling & Software. Volume 122 (104539). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2019.104539
  • Kelly Jowett, Alice E Milne, Helen Metcalfe, Kirsty Hassall, Simon Potts, Deepa Senapathi, Jonathan Storkey (2019) Species matter when considering landscape effects on carabid distributions. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment. Volume 285. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2019.106631
  • Shi, Zhiqiang; Wang, Yan; Wan, Yongfang; Hassall, Kirsty; Jiang, Dong; Shewry, Peter; Hawkesford, Malcolm (2019) Gradients of gluten proteins and free amino acids along the longitudinal axis of the developing caryopsis of bread wheat. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry Manuscript. 67 (31), 8706-8714. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jafc.9b02728
  • Momiji, Hiroshi, Hassall, Kirsty, Featherstone, Karen, McNamara, Anne, Patist, Amanda, Spiller, David G., Christian, Helen, White, Michael R. H., Davis, Julian R. E., Finkenstädt, Bärbel and Rand, D. A. (2019) Disentangling juxtacrine from paracrine signalling in dynamic tissue: the spatio-temporal regulation of prolactin production in rat pituitary tissue. PLOS Computational Biology https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007030
  • Metcalfe, Helen; Hassall, Kirsty; Boinot, Sebastien; Storkey, Jonathan (2019) The contribution of spatial mass effects to plant diversity in arable fields. Journal of Applied Ecology https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13414
  • Hassall, K. L., Whitmore, A. P. and Milne, A. E. (2019) Accounting for data sparsity when forming spatially coherent zones. Applied Mathematical Modelling. 72, pp. 537-552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apm.2019.03.030
  • Hongtao Zhang, Lucy Gannon, Peter Jones, Chelsea Rundle, Kirsty Hassall, Daniel Gibbs, Michael Holdsworth, and Frederica Theodoulou (2018) Genetic interactions between ABA signalling and the Arg/N-end rule pathway during Arabidopsis seedling establishment. Scientific Reports, Volume 8, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33630-5
  • Hassall, K.L., Mead, A (2018) Beyond the one-way ANOVA for ‘omics data, BMC Bioinformatics, Volume 19, 7, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12859-018-2173-7
  • Broughton R., Ruíz-Lopez N, Hassall K. L. Martínez-Force E., Garcés R., Salas, J. J., Beaudoin F. (2018) New insights in the composition of wax and sterol esters in common and mutant sunflower oils revealed by ESI-MS/MS, Food Chemistry, Volume 269, Pages 70-79, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodchem.2018.06.135
  • Zhang, Hongtao; Gannon, Lucy; Hassall, Kirsty; Deery, Michael; Gibbs, Daniel; Holdsworth, Michael; van der Hoorn, Renier; Lilley, Kathryn; Theodoulou, Freddie. (2018) N-terminomics reveals control of Arabidopsis seed storage proteins and proteases by the Arg/N-end rule pathway. New Phytologist. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.14909
  • Whetton, Rebecca L.; Hassall, Kirsty L.; Waine, Toby W.; Mouazen, Abdul M. (2018) Hyperspectral measurements of yellow rust and fusarium head blight in cereal crops: Part 1: Laboratory study. Biosystems Engineering, Volume 166, Pages 101-115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystemseng.2017.11.008
  • Dunham, LSS; Momiji, H; Harper, CV; Downton, PJ; Hey, K; McNamara, A; Featherstone, K; Spiller, DG; Rand, DA; Finkenstadt, B; White, MRH; Davis, JRE (2017). Asymmetry between Activation and Deactivation during a Transcriptional Pulse. Cell Systems, Volume 5, Issue 6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cels.2017.10.013
  • Featherstone, K., Hey, K.L., Momiji, H., McNamara, A., Patist, A., Woodburn, J., Spiller, D., Christian, H., McNeilly, A., Mullins, J., Finkenstadt, B.F., Rand, D.A., White, M.R.H., Davis, J.R.E. (2016). Spatially Coordinated Dynamic Gene Transcription in Living Pituitary Tissue. eLife. http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.08494
  • Hey, K.L., Momiji, H., Featherstone K., Davis, J.R.E., White, M.R.H., Rand, D.A., Finkenstadt, B.F. (2015). A stochastic transcriptional switch model for single cell imaging data. Biostatistics, Volume 16, Issue 4, 1 October 2015, Pages 655–669, https://doi.org/10.1093/biostatistics/kxv010
  • Hey, Kirsty (2015) The temporal and spatial analysis of single cell gene expression. PhD thesis, University of Warwick. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/72853 

Reports

  • Kirsty Hassall, Alice Milne, Andrew Mead, James Bell, Jennifer Sjölund, Fiona Highet, David Kenyon (2015) Detection and monitoring of psyllid vectors of Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum in Scotland. Literature review: Sampling methods for the detection and monitoring of psyllid vectors and the pathogen CaLsol part of Final project report to Scottish Government.

Software

https://github.com/KirstyLHassall

Profile photograph of Kirsty Hassall

Contact

Kirsty Hassall

Room MB 1.25

Department of Statistics
University of Warwick
Coventry, CV4 7AL
United Kingdom

Office Hours

Monday 10.30 - 11.30

Thursday 13.30 - 14.30

Booking link visible when signed in

External Links

ORCiD: 0000-0003-0033-1136

GitHub: KirstyLHassall

ResearchGate