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Professor of Risk and Information Management, Queen Mary University of London

I am Professor of Risk Information Management at Queen Mary London University, a Research Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute, and also a Director of Agena, a company that specialises in risk management for critical systems. My current research focuses on critical decision-making and, in particular, on quantifying uncertainty. This typically involves analysing and predicting the probabilities of unknown events using causal, probabilistic models (Bayesian networks). This type of reasoning enables improved assessment by taking account of both statistical data where available and also expert judgment, providing more powerful insights and better decision making than is possible from purely data-driven solutions. Hence, the approach can be summarized as 'smart data rather than big data'. Applications include law and forensics (I have been an expert witness in major criminal and civil cases), medicine, security, software reliability, transport safety and reliability, finance, and football prediction. I also have a special interest in raising public awareness of the importance of probability theory and Bayesian reasoning in everyday life (including how to present such reasoning in simple lay terms).

I have been PI in grants totalling over £10million. I currently lead an EPRSC Digital Health Technologies Project (PAMBAYESIAN) and a Leverhulme Trust grant (CAUSAL-DYNAMICS). In 2014 I was awarded a European Research Council Advanced Grant (BAYES-KNOWLEDGE) in which the 'smart data' approach evolved.

In March 2015 I presented the award-winning BBC documentary "Climate Change by Numbers". Since June 2011 I have led an international consortium (Bayes and the Law) of statisticians, lawyers and forensic scientists working to improve the use of statistics in court. In 2016 I led a 6-month Programme on Probability and Statistics in Forensic Science at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge. where I was also a Simons Fellow.

I have published 7 books and over 300 articles, and provided consulting to many major companies world-wide. My book "Risk Assessment and Decision Analysis using Bayesian Networks" with Martin Neil (first edition 2012, second edition 2018) was the first to bring Bayesian networks to a general audience. My book “Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach" (now in its third edition) has over 6500 citations.

Experience

  • –present
    Professor of Risk and Information Management, Queen Mary University of London