Bernard Silverman

Welcome to Bernard Silverman's home page. I am currently Master of St Peter's College, Oxford and Professor of Statistics at Oxford University. I will be leaving the post of Master of St Peter’s at the end of 2009. See my public statement.

From 1 January 2010, I will retain my title of Professor of Statistics at Oxford and will be taking up the posts of Professorial Research Associate at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics and Senior Research Fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. See below for my other professional activities.

Books
Research
Current and recent professional activities
Refereeing papers and supervising research students
Contact information
Recent CV including full list of publications

Higher resolution photograph (4Mb)

Books (selected)

Functional Data Analysis by J. O. Ramsay and B. W. Silverman. Springer, 2005. (Second edition, substantially expanded and rewritten)
Applied Functional Data Analysis: Methods and Case Studies by J. O. Ramsay and B. W. Silverman. Springer, 2002. Click here for a site containing further background material for each chapter, including data sets, and further details of the various analyses.
Wavelets: The Key to Intermittent Information? edited by B. W. Silverman and J. C. Vassilicos. Oxford University Press, 2000.
Nonparametric Regression and Generalized Linear Models: A Roughness Penalty Approach by P. J.Green and B. W. Silverman. Chapman and Hall, 1994.
Density Estimation for Statistics and Data Analysis by B. W. Silverman. Chapman and Hall, 1986

Research

My recent and current research is in a range of areas in theoretical, computational and applied statistics. Particular recent examples include the use of methods of functional data analysis in neuroscience, and wavelet and empirical Bayes methods in genomics research, the latter as part of the MolPage interdisciplinary research project. My future research plans involve greater engagement with human genetics and with issues around climate change.

See my CV for a list of scientific papers (in most cases downloadable) and links to government reports with which I have been involved. In the case of papers published in journals, the link may not be to the most recent version, and it is your responsibility to check that you are not breaching copyright by downloading the paper; you are recommended to obtain the paper through your own library or other electronic subscription if at all possible.

Professional activities

I am President-elect of the Royal Statistical Society, and will serve as President for the years 2010 and 2011.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Society and am a member of the Society’s Council for the years 2009 and 2010. I regularly serve on the Society's committees and working parties. Currently I am chair of the 'State of the Nation' working party which is producing a series of reports on Science and Mathematics education in the United Kingdom.
I am a former President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Based in the USA, the Institute is the leading international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. One of the main activities of the Institute is the publication of learned journals in these fields. For the three-year term 2007 to 2009, I am the Editor (jointly with Susan Murphy of the University of Michigan) of the Institute's theoretical and methodological journal Annals of Statistics. The journal receives approximately 500 submissions per year, of which 20% to 25% are accepted for publication.
The 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008) was conducted jointly by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and its counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I served as chair of the Statistics sub-panel in this exercise.
My recent work for the UK Government includes a non-executive directorship of the Defence Analytical Services Agency, the Statistics and Economics agency of the Ministry of Defence. Recently, I chaired the peer review panel for the Department for Transport's Project for the Sustainable Development of Heathrow and was a member of the Government’s GM Science Review Panel, which produced two reports on the science behind the debate on genetic modification issues.
I am Chair of the United Kingdom Mathematics Trust (UKMT). The Trust is a registered charity which aims to advance the education of children and young people in mathematics. It organises national mathematics competitions and other mathematical enrichment activities for 11-18 year old UK school pupils. These range from popular "mass" Maths Challenges to team competitions, forums for teachers and the selection and training of the UK team for the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). I have also served as Chair of the Joint Mathematical Council of the United Kingdom.
I am an elected member of the Council of Oxford University, and a member of several university committees, notably the Planning and Resource Allocation Committee (PRAC), the Joint Resource Allocation Advisory Board (JRAAB), the Board for Continuing Education (which I chair), the supervisory committee for the Permanent Private Halls, and a range of ad hoc working parties and committees.

Please note: Because of pressures on my time, I very much regret that I cannot take on the supervision of research students or the refereeing of scientific papers. Please accept my apologies.

Contact Information

Email:	bernard.silverman AT spc.ox.ac.uk
Web:	www.bernardsilverman.com
Postal address:	Professor Bernard W. Silverman FRS St Peter's College OXFORD OX1 2DL UK
Telephone numbers:	Personal Assistant (Jane Kimble): (+44 or 0) 1865 278911 Direct Dial: (+44 or 0) 1865 278862 Switchboard: (+44 or 0) 1865 278900