Simon Tavaré is a statistician and cancer researcher who has long been a world leader at the interface of those two fields. A specialist in the effects of genome alterations on cancer, his analytical work on the underlying biological data has been key to improving our understanding of these devastating diseases.

Simon’s work on DNA analysis has also led to important contributions in the field of population genetics, as well as within the more abstract field of Bayesian statistics. A pioneer in computational biology, his aim is to understand the way in which genetic variations interact with environmental features to shape human responses to disease.

In addition to holding a professorship in Cambridge’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics and the Department of Oncology, Simon is also Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. A Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the Society of Biology, he is due to take up his post as President of the London Mathematical Society in November 2015.