Sir Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith, PRS (born 9 September 1946) is a British statistician who is chief executive of the Alan Turing Institute and president of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Early life and education

Smith was born on 9 September 1946 in

Dawlish Dawlish is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Teignbridge district in Devon, England. It is located on the south coast of England at a distance of from the city of Exeter and a similar distance from the to ...

in Devon. He was educated at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

, where his PhD supervisor was Dennis Lindley.

Career

From 1977 until 1990, he was professor of statistics and head of department of mathematics at the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. Nottingham's main campus (University Park Campus, Nottingh ...

. He was subsequently at Imperial College, London, where he was head of the mathematics department. Smith is a former deputy vice-chancellor of the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

and became vice-chancellor of the university on 1 September 2012. He stood down from the role in August 2018 to become the director of the Alan Turing Institute. Smith is a member of the governing body of the London Business School. He served on the Advisory Council for the

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; ) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible fo ...

from 1996 to 1998, was statistical advisor to the Nuclear Waste Inspectorate from 1991 to 1998 and was advisor on Operational Analysis to the Ministry of Defence from 1982 to 1987. He is a former president of the Royal Statistical Society. He was elected a Fellow of the

in 2001. His FRS citation included "his diverse contributions to

Bayesian statistics Bayesian statistics ( or ) is a theory in the field of statistics based on the Bayesian interpretation of probability, where probability expresses a ''degree of belief'' in an event. The degree of belief may be based on prior knowledge about ...

. His monographs are the most comprehensive available and his work has had a major impact on the development of monitoring tools for clinicians." In

statistical theory The theory of statistics provides a basis for the whole range of techniques, in both study design and data analysis, that are used within applications of statistics. The theory covers approaches to statistical-decision problems and to statistica ...

, Smith is a proponent of

and

evidence-based practice Evidence-based practice is the idea that occupational practices ought to be based on scientific evidence. The movement towards evidence-based practices attempts to encourage and, in some instances, require professionals and other decision-makers ...

—a general extension of

evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. It means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available exte ...

into all areas of public policy. With Antonio Machi, he translated

Bruno de Finetti Bruno de Finetti (13 June 1906 – 20 July 1985) was an Italian probabilist statistician and actuary, noted for the "operational subjective" conception of probability. The classic exposition of his distinctive theory is the 1937 , which discuss ...

's Theory of Probability into English. He wrote an influential paper in 1990 along with Alan E. Gelfand, which drew attention to the significance of the Gibbs sampler technique for Bayesian

numerical integration In analysis, numerical integration comprises a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral. The term numerical quadrature (often abbreviated to quadrature) is more or less a synonym for "numerical integr ...

problems. He was also co-author of the seminal paper on the particle filter (Gordon, Salmond and Smith, 1993). In

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and statistics education, Smith led the team which produced the Smith Report on secondary mathematics education in the United Kingdom. In April 2008, Smith was appointed as director general of science and research at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (since merged with other departments to form the UK's BEIS). He took up his post in September 2008. His annual remuneration for this role was £160,000. Smith was knighted in the

2011 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 2011 were announced on 31 December 2010 in the United Kingdom,United Kingdom: New Zealand,New Zealand"New Year Honours 2011"(14 January 2011) 2 '' New Zealand Gazette'' 55. The Cook IslandsThe Cook Islands: Grenada,Grenada: ...

. In 2023 he was a guest on The Life Scientific on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

Honorary doctorates

In 2011, Smith was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Plymouth University, in 2015, an Honorary Doctorate of Science from

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

. and in 2020 an Honorary Doctorate Honoris Causa from Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He also was awarded Honorary Doctorates from City University, University of Loughborough, Queen Mary and

Bibliography

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References

External links