He is currently Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication in the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at Cambridge.[7] On 27 May 2020 he joined the board of the UK Statistics Authority as a non-executive director for a period of three years,[8] a term which was extended through to 2026.[9]
Early life and education
Spiegelhalter was born on 16 August 1953.[10] He was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School, a state grammar school in Barnstaple, Devon, from 1963 to 1970.[11] He then studied mathematics at Keble College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1974.[12][13] He moved to University College London, where he gained his Master of Science (MSc) degree in statistics in 1975 and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in mathematical statistics in 1978.[12][13] His doctoral thesis was titled "Adaptive Inference Using Finite Mixture Models",[14] and was supervised by Adrian Smith.[2]
Between 2007 and 2012 he divided his work[16] between the Cambridge Statistical Laboratory (three-fifths) and the Medical Research CouncilBiostatistics Unit (two-fifths).[17] He left the MRC in March 2012[18] and worked full-time at the Statistical Laboratory as the Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk until his retirement. He remained chair of the Winton Centre until it closed in 2023. As of 2012 Spiegelhalter has supervised 7 PhD students.[13][19]
In 2012, Spiegelhalter hosted the BBC Four documentary Tails You Win: The Science of Chance which described the application of probability in everyday life.[20] He also presented a 2013 Cambridge Science Festival talk, How to Spot a Shabby Statistic at the Babbage Lecture Theatre in Cambridge.[5][21]
He was elected as President of the Royal Statistical Society, and took up the position on 1 January 2017. His Presidential address later that year took as its subject Trust in Numbers.[22]
In March 2020 Spiegelhalter launched a podcast called Risky Talk where he interviews experts in risk and evidence communication on topics like genetics, nutrition, climate change and immigration.[23] He appeared on BBC Desert Island Discs on 6 February 2022.[24]
Research
Spiegelhalter's research interests are in statistics[1][25][26] including
Bayesian approach to clinical trials, expert systems and complex modelling and epidemiology.[27]
Graphical models of conditional independence. He wrote several papers in the 1980s that showed how probability could be incorporated into expert systems, a problem that seemed intractable at the time. Spiegelhalter showed that while frequentist probability did not lend itself to expert systems, Bayesian probability most certainly did.[28]
General issues in clinical trials,[31] including cluster randomisation, meta-analysis and ethical monitoring.
Monitoring and comparing clinical and public-health outcomes and their associated publication as performance indicators.
Public understanding of risk,[32][33] including promoting concepts such as the micromort (a one in a million chance of death) and microlife (a 30-minute reduction of life expectancy). Media reporting of statistics,[34] risk and probability and the wider conception of uncertainty as going beyond what is measured to model uncertainty, the unknown and the unmeasurable.
^"Churchill College: Fellows: List of current Fellows". Archived from the original on 18 February 2012. Retrieved 14 September 2011.
^David Spiegelhalter's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
^ a bDavid Spiegelhalter at IMDb
^"David Spiegelhalter's Personal Home Page". Retrieved 6 January 2022.
^Spiegelhalter, D. J. (2021). Covid by numbers : making sense of the pandemic with data / David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters. Anthony Masters. [United Kingdom]. ISBN 978-0-241-54773-1. OCLC 1250202258.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^"Appointment of two new Non-Executive Directors to the UK Statistics Authority Board". Retrieved 27 May 2020.
^"UK Statistics Authority welcomes three new non-executive directors".
^"SPIEGELHALTER, Prof. David John". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^Keeble, Andy (18 June 2014). "Barnstaple old boy knighted in Queen's Birthday honours". North Devon Gazette.
^ a b"Spiegelhalter, Sir David (John), (born 16 Aug. 1953), Chair, Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, University of Cambridge, since 2017 (Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, 2007–18); Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge". Who's Who 2021. Oxford University Press. 1 December 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2021.
^ a b c d"CURRICULUM VITAE – David John SPIEGELHALTER" (PDF). Understanding Uncertainty. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
^Spiegelhalter, David (1978). Adaptive inference using finite mixture models (PhD thesis). University College London.
^"Programme transcript". BBC News. 2 April 2006.
^Spiegelhalter, David (October 2009). "Don's Diary" (PDF). CAM. Cambridge University Alumni Association. p. 3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
^"MRC Biostatistics Unit: People". Archived from the original on 3 September 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
^"Welcome to the MRC Biostatistics Unit". Archived from the original on 13 January 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2012.
^"David John Spiegelhalter". Mathematics Genealogy Project. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
^BBC Four – Tails You Win: The Science of Chance
^What's On » Cambridge Science Festival – How to spot a shabby statistic
^Spiegelhalter, D. (2017). "Trust in numbers". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A. 180 (4): 949-965. doi:10.1111/rssa.12302.
^Risky Talk website. Accessed 30 December 2022.
^"Desert Island Discs – Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, statistician – BBC Sounds". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
^David J. Spiegelhalter at DBLP Bibliography Server
^Spiegelhalter, D. J.; Best, N. G.; Carlin, B. P.; Linde, A. V. D. (2002). "Bayesian Measures of Model Complexity and Fit". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. 64 (4): 583–639. doi:10.1111/1467-9868.00353.
^Lauritzen, S. L.; Spiegelhalter, D. J. (1988). "Local Computations with Probabilities on Graphical Structures and Their Application to Expert Systems". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. 50 (2): 157–224. JSTOR 2345762.
^Gilks, W. R.; Richardson, S.; Spiegelhalter, D. J. (1996). Markov Chain Monte Carlo in Practice. Chapman & Hall. ISBN 978-0-412-05551-5.
^Spiegelhalter, David; Thomas, Andrew; Best, Nicky; Lunn, Dave (January 2003), WinBUGS User Manual (Version 1.4 ed.), Robinson Way, Cambridge CB2 2SR, UK: MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health, PDF document, archived from the original on 3 March 2012, retrieved 27 February 2012{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Neuenschwander, B.; Capkun-Niggli, G.; Branson, M.; Spiegelhalter, D. J. (2010). "Summarizing historical information on controls in clinical trials". Clinical Trials. 7 (1): 5–18. doi:10.1177/1740774509356002. PMID 20156954. S2CID 38751711.
^Spiegelhalter, D.; Pearson, M.; Short, I. (2011). "Visualizing Uncertainty About the Future". Science. 333 (6048): 1393–1400. Bibcode:2011Sci...333.1393S. CiteSeerX10.1.1.1029.4615. doi:10.1126/science.1191181. PMID 21903802. S2CID 1223740.
^"David Spiegelhalter's blog | Understanding Uncertainty". Retrieved 15 September 2011.
^Riesch, H.; Spiegelhalter, D. J. (2011). "'Careless pork costs lives': Risk stories from science to press release to media". Health, Risk & Society. 13: 47–64. doi:10.1080/13698575.2010.540645. S2CID 72065012.
^Outstanding Statistical Application Award, ASA, retrieved 31 March 2014.
^UK list: "No. 58014". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 17 June 2006. p. 13.
^"Weldon Memorial Prize and Medal – International Statistical Institute". Archived from the original on 14 August 2011. Retrieved 15 September 2011.
^"Honorary graduates, 2010 to 2019".
^"David Spiegelhalter's Personal Home Page". www.statslab.cam.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 1 January 2018. Retrieved 29 March 2016.