Published Papers

Dr Nicolai Meinshausen has recently co-authored two articles on climate change, which were the cover story of Nature on 30th April 2009.

Myles Allen, David Frame, Chris Huntingford, Chris Jones, Jason Lowe, Malte Meinshausen and Nicolai Meinshausen (2009).  Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne. Nature, 458, 1163-1166

Malte Meinshausen, Nicolai Meinshausen, William Hare, Sarah Raper, Katja Frieler, Reto Knutti, David Frame and Myles Allen (2009) Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2^oC.  Nature, 458, 1158-1162

(Nature Editorial, News & Views) 

RAE 2008: Oxford Statistics leads the field

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) results released on 18 December, 90% of research activity in Statistics at Oxford was judged to be 4* (world leading) or 3* (internationally excellent), the highest proportion of any UK university in the subject. Oxford Statistics also had the highest proportion of 4* world leading research (40%).

Head of Department, Professor Colin McDiarmid said:

"This is a great result for us. There are many strong Statistics departments in the country, so it is very pleasing that the RAE picks us out as the leading department, with such a high proportion of our research judged to be world leading or internationally excellent."

More information on RAE results can be found at http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2008/081217_1.html
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Announcements

Weldon Memorial Prize for 2008

The Weldon Memorial Prize for 2008 has been awarded to Professor Peter Donnelly, FRS, FMedSci, Professor of Statistical Science in the Department of Statistics and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford.

The prize is awarded, “without regard to nationality or membership of any University to the person who, in the judgement of the electors, has, in the ten years next preceding the date of the award, published the most noteworthy contribution to the development of mathematical or statistical methods applied to problems in Biology. (Biology shall, for the purposes of this clause, be interpreted as including Zoology, Botany, Anthropology, Sociology, Psychology, and Medical Science.)”
Previous winners of the prize include: R.A. Fisher, E.S. Pearson, J.B.S Haldane, Mahalanobis, Sewall Wright, Motoo Kimura, M.S. Bartlett, D.G.. Kendall, Robert May, D.R. Cox, John Maynard Smith, Warren Ewens, and Richard Peto.

The prize commemorates the memory of Walter Frank Raphael Weldon FRS (1860-1906), former Linacre Professor of Comparative Anatomy at the University of Oxford.  Weldon was a Zoologist of distinction and one of the leading early biometricians.

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Professor Chris Holmes
Congratulations to Professor Chris Holmes who has been awarded the Royal Statistical Society Guy Medal in Bronze for 2009.

The citation for the Medal reads as follows:

“The Guy Medal in Bronze is awarded to Chris Holmes for his work in developing innovative statistical methods of analysis for many application driven problems and for advocating the use of statistical advances in fields of application. These include two papers in JRSS series B: Holmes & Mallick (2001) and Holmes & Adams (2002), and, more recently, innovative Bayesian model-based hierarchical clustering methods for gene-expression data – which have been applied to cell lines of the Anopholes mosquito – a major vector of malaria. He has also conducted groundbreaking work on methodology for inhomogenous random fields; developed new methods for modelling geological thermal histories and introduced Bayesian mixture models into geochronology.”

The medal will be awarded at an awards ceremony on 24 June.

Professor Tom A B Snijders

A Belgian Francqui Chair 2008-2009 has been awarded to Prof. Dr. Tom A.B. Snijders. This is an honorary chair at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). The topic of this Francqui chair is "Statistical Models for Social Network Data". The chair will comprise an inauguration and a lecture series. The inaugural lecture will take place on February 16, 2009 in the University Hall of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

http://ppw.kuleuven.be/francqui/    

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Professor Gesine Reinert

The third Journal of Peace Research Article of the Year Award goes to a paper co-authored by  Neil F. Johnson, Michael Spagat, Sean Gourley, Jukka-Pekka Onnela & Gesine Reinert, on 'Bias in Epidemiological Studies of Conflict Mortality http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/45/5/653', Journal of Peace Research 45(5): 653-663.

This paper provides a framework of how to assess bias in epidemiological studies which may arise when the sampling procedure is not sufficiently sensitive to the structural heterogeneity of the system and the internal diffusion within the system. The approach is applied to a recent survey of conflict mortality in Iraq; such bias may arise in a cluster sampling procedures which picks clusters from residential streets which are required to cross main streets. The main point is illustrated in the attached figure. 

For more details see : http://www.prio.no/Research-and-Publications/Journal-of-Peace-Research/Article-of-the-year/ 

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External Advisory Panel - Dr Simon Day takes over the Chairmanship of the External Advisory Panel from Dr David Roberts.

Biographical details of Dr Day: Statistical Expert at Roche Products Ltd; PhD Napier University; Fellow of Royal Statistical Society; Past President of International Society for Clinical Biostatistics; Associate Faculty member, Johns Hopkins University; Honorary Research Fellow, Napier University; member of the Educational Advisory Board of the Vienna School of Clinical Research; Joint Editor Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series A), member of editorial boards of Statistics in Medicine and Pharmaceutical Statistics; former member of editorial board Controlled Clinical Trials.

The Department wishes to thank Dr David Roberts for his ongoing contribution to the work of the Panel, and for his role as the first EAP Chairman (2005 - 2008).

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Professor Steffen Lauritzen

Aalborg University, Denmark has awarded Professor Steffen Lauritzen an Honorary Doctorate - doctor scientarum honoris causa - to be formally received at a ceremony in Aalborg on 31 October this year

Foreign Member to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters 2008 

Congratulations to Professor Steffen Lauritzen on becoming a Foreign Member to the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters 2008

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Professor Peter Donnelly FRS

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences

Professor Peter Donnelly FRS has been elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences for outstanding contributions to the advancement of medical science, for innovative application of scientific knowledge and conspicuous service to healthcare.

Professor Donnelly is Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, and is a member of the Department of Statistics. 

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The WTCC paper has recently won a number of awards from various papers (see links below) and is just about to be named as the Lancet's paper of the year for 2007.

Scientific American has named the WTCCC as its research leader of the
year. 

The paper was also one of the "Nature editor's picks"

Science also picked this area as its major breakthrough for 2007. 

And we were first and second in the American Heart Association's list of
achievements for the year

The Independent (7th June 2007) 

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Disease Genes Discovered

Oxford Statisticians are involved in the largest ever study of genetics of common diseases. The project is chaired by Professor Peter Donnelly. Other members of the department involved include Dr Jonathan Marchini and Dr Chris Spencer.

These external sites have more details:
http://www.wtccc.org.uk/info/070606.shtml
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6724369.stm
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v447/n7145/full/nature05911.html

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Phase 2 of Map of Human Genetic Variation Published

The second phase of the HapMap www.hapmap.org Project – created to identify and catalogue genetic similarities and differences among populations around the world – has been completed by scientists from six countries, including Oxford researchers.

The International HapMap Consortium is a public-private partnership of researchers and funding agencies from the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Japan, Nigeria and the United States. Much of the analyses of both phases of HapMap was undertaken at the University of Oxford, the only British university selected to be involved with the project.

One of the co-chairs of the analysis group, Professor Peter Donnelly, FRS, Director of Oxford University’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, said: ‘Understanding the differences between people’s genomes, and why those differences exist, is at the core of many questions in modern biomedical research. The HapMap project has transformed this area of research, giving new insights into areas as diverse as why some people are more susceptible to disease and our evolutionary history.’

‘We are thrilled that the worldwide scientific community is taking advantage of this powerful new tool and we anticipate even more exciting findings in the future,’ says Professor Gil McVean of the University of Oxford’s Department of Statistics and Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, who co-led the analysis of Phase II HapMap and is one of two corresponding authors on the paper. ‘The improved SNP coverage offered by the Phase II HapMap, along with better statistical methods, promises to further increase the accuracy and reliability of genome-wide association studies.

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Last Updated: June 2009