2021 Fitch Lecture

Professor John Aston gave the first Fitch Lecture, an annual lecture to commemorate Davey Fitch (1978-2019) which aims to highlight the impact of mathematical sciences. 

Statistics, Science and Government: A Statistician as a CSA

Statistics and data have always had a role in government, and censuses, for example, have been carried out for thousands of years to allow governments to make decisions. As a departmental chief scientific adviser, it was always important to me to make sure that the evidence was well considered in the policy-making process. In this talk, I'll give some examples of how statistics was combined with other science in the policy process, and how hopefully the current appetite for science in government will continue to lead to better and better policy decisions. I very much hope this will encourage other mathematicians and statisticians to consider getting involved in science advice for themselves.

Prof. John Aston (University of Cambridge)

John Aston, Harding Professor of Statistics in Public Life, is based in the Statistical Laboratory, Dept of Pure Maths and Mathematical Statistics at the University of Cambridge. From 2017-2020 he was Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office. He is an applied statistician who works in areas including medical imaging and official statistics, and was a founding director of the Alan Turing Institute.