PhD studentships in AI and Data Science, at the University of Warwick

A (rather urgent) call for candidates for PhD studentships in AI and Data Science at Warwick. These are part of Warwick’s MRC-Funded Doctoral Training Program in Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research. Selected students would start in Autumn 2018. The deadline is on June 3.

just in case your summer of British conferences is not yet fully-booked…

Suffrage Science awards in maths and computing

On October 11, at Bletchley Park, the Suffrage Science awards in mathematics and computer sciences were awarded for the first time to 12 senior female researchers. Among whom three statisticians, Professor Christl Donnelly from Imperial College London, my colleague at Warwick, Jane Hutton, and my friend and co-author, Sylvia Richardson, from MRC, Cambridge University. This initiative was started by the Medical Research Council in 2011 by Suffrage Science awards for life sciences, followed in 2013 by one for engineering and physics, and this year for maths and computing. The name of the award aims to connect with the Suffragette movement of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, which were particularly active in Britain. One peculiar aspect of this award is that the recipients are given pieces of jewellery, created for each field, pieces that they will themselves give two years later to a new recipient of their choice, and so on in an infinite regress! (Which suggests a related puzzle, namely to figure out how many years it should take until all female scientists have received the award. But since the number increases as the square of the number of years, this is not going to happen unless the field proves particularly hostile to women scientists!) This jewellery award also relates to the history of the Suffragette movement since the WPSU commissioned their own jewellery awards. A clever additional touch was that the awards were delivered on Ada Lovelace Day, October 11.

Bayesian job in Cambridge

Here is an email that could appeal to some readers:

Job in Cambridge MRC-BSU – Bayesian statistician
Career development fellow
MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge

We are offering an exciting opportunity to work on Bayesian models for infectious disease dynamics. A statistician is required to contribute to a programme of research to develop inferential approaches to estimation and prediction of epidemic evolution when relevant information, possibly from diverse sources, arrives at regular intervals, and, likely, in real time. Examples include the monitoring and prediction of long standing epidemics such as HIV, as well as new emerging epidemics (e.g. Swine Flu). Challenges include the need to synthesise heterogeneous and biased information to produce timely updates of epidemic evolution. You will have a PhD in statistics, or a relevant discipline; computing experience, both of statistical packages (e.g. R) and programming languages (e.g. C, C++); and experience of Bayesian statistics. Experience of Bayesian computation (e.g. MCMC) and of Bayesian inference for disease transmission would be advantageous. You must have good communication skills and be able to contribute substantially to writing scientific papers. Starting salary will be in the range of £26,022 – £28,764 per annum.

Applications are handled by the RCUK Shared Services Centre; to apply please visit our job board to view the full job description and person requirements and complete an online application quoting reference IRC18709. If you are unable to apply online please contact us on 01793 867003.

Closing date: 11th May 2011 Interview date: 25th May 2011