In 2022 we had an open call for NCSE Executive Committee members to expand the leadership of NCSE. We look forward to working together to undertake new initiatives which will benefit the members of NCSE.
Paul is a Professor of Statistics at the University of Sheffield. He has worked extensively on Bayesian methodology for stochastic and statistical models and on a wide range of applications, particularly in ecology but also including archaeology and engineering. Within ecology, his primary interest is in movement modelling for individuals and groups, especially in continuous time, and most recently methods for combining movement data with other kinds of observations and its connection with habitat selection. He also works on multi-model ensemble methods of inference for ecosystem modelling.
Simon completed his PhD in Statistics at Simon Fraser University followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia. He worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Kentucky before moving to the Department of Statistical and Actuarial Sciences at the University of Western Ontario, where he was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2021. Simon’s research focuses on developing methods for the analysis of ecological data with a particular focus on Bayesian methods, computation, and data with uncertain identification.
David is a statistician specialising in the developing and applying statistical methods to solve problems in ecology: mostly methods of estimating wildlife population abundance, distribution and population trajectories over time. David completed a PhD in statistics at the University of Cape Town in 1996 and has worked as a statistician for the International Whaling Commission, BioSS, The University of Cape Town, and (since 1993) The University of St Andrews. He has been a member of NCSE since its inception and his current research focuses mainly on spatial capture-recapture and related methods. His personal webpage can be accessed here: https://dlb992.wixsite.com/davidborchers.
Luca is an ecologist, interested in quantitatively assessing environmental change impacts on local and global biodiversity and identifying the underlying individual- and community-level mechanistic processes to develop predictive models and derive policies for sustainable life on earth. He is a Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity and co-Director of the Centre for Biomathematics at Swansea University and Chair of the Movement Ecology Special Interest Group of the British Ecological Society. He completed his PhD in Zoology at the University of Cambridge. He joined the NCSE Executive Committee in 2019 and is the International Statistical Ecology Conference (ISEC) 2024 host and member of the ISEC Long Range Planning Committee member and Engagement.
Steve is Emeritus Professor of Statistics at the University of St Andrews. His recent research has focussed mostly on developing distance sampling methods, modelling population dynamics, and quantifying biodiversity trends. He was one of the founders of NCSE, along with Byron Morgan and Steve Brooks.
Eduard Campillo-Funollet studied Mathematics at the University of Barcelona, and he completed his PhD at the University of Sussex in 2018, on Bayesian inverse problem techniques for quantitative biology. Eduard stayed at Sussex as a postdoctoral researcher at the Genome Damage and Stability Centre, and later took a lecturer position at the University of Kent. He is currently a Lecturer in Statistics at Lancaster University. Eduard works on the interface between applied mathematics and statistics, with particular interest in modelling and inference, He is passionate about interdisciplinary applications of statistics in ecology and biology.
Fergus is a lecturer in Statistics at the University of St Andrews (https://research-portal.st-andrews.ac.uk/en/persons/fergus-chadwick). In early 2023, he completed his PhD at the University of Glasgow with Jason Matthiopoulos, Dirk Husmeier and Dan Haydon. Prior to becoming a statistician, he was interested in bees and pollination ecology, and became interested in statistics when he realised good fieldwork could be made worse than useless by bad analysis. Fergus’ research more recently focuses on modelling and describing the complex observation processes that abound in modern ecological research. He is particularly interested in citizen science data and making communication between field scientists and statisticians smoother. As Early Career Lead for NCSE he is keen to make the centre as inclusive as possible and to promote the excellent work being done by early career researchers.
Eleni is a Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Kent, having previously worked at the University of Oxford and Victoria University of Wellington. Her research focuses on developing new models for ecological data, and in particular for citizen science data and DNA-based survey data. She enjoys bridging the gap between ecological applications and statistical methodology and collaborating with ecologists. She has been part of the NCSE since she was a PhD student, supervised by Prof Byron Morgan and believes that attending the NCSE summer meetings is one of the highlights of her academic life!
Rachel is a Professor of Statistics at Lancaster University. Much of Rachel’s research has been motivated by a desire to reliably inform conservation strategies. In particular, she has developed a number of new statistical approaches for the modelling of capture-recapture data and integrated population modelling. More recently she has been conducting research on statistical methods for conservation translocations. Rachel became a member of NCSE when it was established during her PhD studies, and really enjoys interacting with the engaged community of statisticians and quantitative ecologists. Rachel was awarded the 2020 Guy Medal in Bronze by the Royal Statistical Society and was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2021.
Byron Morgan was born in Swansea, and attended Aberdare Boys’ Grammar School. He obtained a BSc from Imperial College and a PhD from Churchill College Cambridge. He has worked as a statistician in France (WHO), Cambridge (MRC) and Australia (CSIRO). He joined the University of Kent in 1972, where he is now an Emeritus professor. He has supervised/co-supervised about 50 PhD students and post-doctoral research associates. He has been President of the International Biometric Society, the British and Irish Region of that Society, and a Vice President of the Royal Statistical Society. He was editor of JABES and co-editor of Biometrics and Applied Statistics. He was Chairman of the HEFCE Research Assessment Exercise Statistics Panel in 2001. In 2005 he, Steve Brooks and Steve Buckland obtained the founding grant for the National Centre for Statistical Ecology, of which he was the first director. A current enthusiasm is analysing data on Lepidoptera, in association with scientists at Butterfly Conservation.
Chris is an applied quantitative ecologist and a Reader in the Center for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) at the University of St Andrews. He has a particular interest in spatial population ecology: understanding how spatial processes such as movement, dispersal and connectivity, influence the dynamics of spatially structured populations. Most of his research involves the development and application of spatially realistic hierarchical models for observations of individuals, populations and metapopulations. He is (co) Deputy Chair of the NCSE Executive Committee and his specific focus in this role is to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion in all aspects of the NCSE, and to increase engagement and visibility of the centre using social media.
Ben is a statistician at the University of St Andrews with interests in Bayesian computational methods in ecological and epidemiological systems, particularly complex and dynamic systems and/or those driven by mechanistic models. He also has interests in data fusion approaches for citizen science studies.
Hannah is a statistician who enjoys developing and applying models to real-world ecological data; typically to investigate changes to populations through time including abundance, recruitment and behaviour. She also enjoys looking for the connections between ecological models and other areas of statistics, e.g. epidemiology, medicine and molecular biology, as well as playing an active part in outreach and science communication to those outside of academia. Hannah is currently a Lecturer at the University of St Andrews where she also completed her PhD. She joined the NCSE after sitting in on an NCSE meeting as an undergraduate summer student and has attended meetings and been involved ever since.