David Spiegelhalter is Emeritus Professor of Statistics in the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, having previously held the posts of Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, and Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication. He works on ways to improve the way that statistical evidence is used by health professionals, patients, lawyers and judges, media and policy-makers. He presented the BBC4 documentaries “Tails you Win: the Science of Chance”, the award-winning “Climate Change by Numbers”. His bestselling book, The Art of Statistics, was published in March 2019, and Covid by Numbers came out in September 2021. His career highlights include appearing on Desert Island Discs in 2022, and in 2011 coming 7th in an episode of BBC1’s Winter Wipeout.
He was knighted in 2014 for services to medical statistics, was President of the Royal Statistical Society (2017-2018) and became a Non-Executive Director of the UK Statistics Authority in 2020. He is @d_spiegel on Twitter, and his home page is http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~david.
Professional position
- Winton Professor of Public Understanding of Risk, Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge
Subject groups
- Mathematics
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Health and Human Sciences
Medical statistics and demography
Awards
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Michael Faraday Prize and Lecture
For bringing key insights from the disciplines of statistics and probability vividly home to the public at large, and to key decision-makers, in entertaining and accessible ways, most recently through the COVID-19 pandemic.
