Charles Brenner

Charles Hallam Brenner, the originator of forensic mathematics, was an APL implementer and continues to use APL, particularly for DNA analysis.

Brenner participated in the implementation of APL\360 and APL\1130, and implemented the Transpose and Rotate primitive functions under the direction of Larry Breed. Later he implemented Boolean Transpose in STSC APL, and contracted for I.P. Sharp Associates.

More recently, Brenner specializes in the use of mathematics in DNA analysis. His principal areas of interest and achievement in the mathematics of forensic DNA are kinship, rare haplotype matching, and DNA mixtures. In a couple of Y haplotype papers, most recently, he showed why Y haplotypes must be much rarer, and how much rarer, than their sample frequency in a reference population sample. Brenner’s Symbolic Kinship Program, which can for example assess the identification evidence based on DNA profiles from an anonymous body and an arbitrary set of presumed relatives, has been widely used in mass victim identification projects, including identifying about 1/3 of the identified World Trade Center bodies. His main product, DNA•VIEW is written in APL.

Publications

 * "ACORN: APL to C on real numbers" at APL90. With Robert Bernecky, Stephen B. Jaffe, and George P. Moeckel.
 * "DNA identification technology and APL" in Vector journal

Dyalog user meetings

 * Dyalog '08 03: Snooping with APL
 * Dyalog '12 I22: Crackpot files and Other Stories of Forensic Mathematics
 * Dyalog '14 I01: There's DNA everywhere – an opportunity for APL (slides)
 * Dyalog '16 L10: The Joy of (Especially Dyalog) APL and Some Gripes
 * Dyalog '18 U13: Simplicity can be Confusing – Understanding the Manly Chromosome partly through APL (slides)