Who I am & what I do

The statistician cannot evade the responsibility for understanding the process s-he applies or recommends.

Ronald Fisher (1890-1962). The design of experiments (1971). p.1.

I am an applied statistician and researcher, interested in how we experience our world. I work in a wide remit of fundamental research and industrial applications, including reproducibility of science, climate change science, machine learning, neuroscience and cyber psychology.

I have been oscillating between computers and brains for almost as long as I can remember, which gradually led me to focus on the application of Bayesian stats. I have been very fortunate to work in amazing places, and meet incredible people. They all shaped my understanding of the world, and can be credited for all the good things. I take full responsibility for the bad ones.

I am currently an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences, at the University of Reading, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience & Neurodynamics. Part of my time is currently seconded to the Department of Meteorology, to work with Professor Ted Shepherd in climate change science. I am on the steering group of the UK Reproducibility Network, the UKRN Institution Lead for the University of Reading and workstream lead on the £8.5M UKRN national programme. I am a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

Some representative data points about my academic practice: I am a signatory to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), and abide by the Leiden Manifesto for research metrics; both pervade many aspects of what I do. My Erdös number is 4. I am Steve #1135. I can claim some filiation to Gustav Fechner (my great-great-great-great-great-great supervisor), as well as Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. I was a professional software engineer, and crêpes maker.

I came to be extremely selective with the academic reviewing that I do, and because I am already an active editor for ReScience C, Rescience X and Adaptive Behavior, I am likely to only agree to review grant proposals. Thank you for your understanding!

I am always interested to meet new people, so don’t hesitate to say hi! 🙂

… and of course, a big thank you to the people funding my work. 🙂