Peter James Green, FRS (born 28 April 1950)Prof Peter Green
at Debrett's ''People of Today''. Accessed 2011-01-23. is a British Bayesian

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

. He is emeritus Professor of Statistics at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a public university, public research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Merchant Venturers' school founded in 1595 and University College, Br ...

. Until 2024, he was a Professorial Research Fellow at Bristol, and until 2022 a distinguished professor at the

University of Technology, Sydney The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is a public research university located in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The university was founded in its current form in 1988, though its origins as a technical institution can be traced back t ...

. He is distinguished for his contributions to

computational statistics Computational statistics, or statistical computing, is the study which is the intersection of statistics and computer science, and refers to the statistical methods that are enabled by using computational methods. It is the area of computational ...

, in particular his contributions to spatial statistics and semi-parametric regression models and also his development of reversible-jump

Markov chain Monte Carlo In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a class of algorithms used to draw samples from a probability distribution. Given a probability distribution, one can construct a Markov chain whose elements' distribution approximates it – that ...

Education and career

Green was born in

Solihull Solihull ( ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe in the Arden, Warwickshire, Forest of Arden ar ...

and attended Solihull School. He studied mathematics at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

before moving to the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

for postgraduate study, where he was awarded an MSc in probability and statistics and a PhD in applied probability. In 2024, Green had publicly questioned the usefulness of specific evidence in relation to the case of Lucy Letby, who was convicted of the murder of a number of babies in her care, namely the staff rotas and blood samples from babies who had collapsed with low blood sugar. However lawyers for the affected families declared during the subsequent hospital inquiry into the neonatal deaths that he and others questioning the conviction "should be ashamed of themselves".

Honors and awards

Green was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 2003. He served as president of the Royal Statistical Society from 2001 to 2003, having previously been awarded its Guy Medal in both Bronze (1987) and Silver (1999).Honours & Awards: Previous Recipients
. Royal Statistical Society. Accessed 2009-04-26. He held a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award from 2006 to 2011. He was president of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis for the year 2007. He is currently Chair of the Trustees of the journal ''

Biometrika ''Biometrika'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press for the Biometrika Trust. The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was ...

'', and was editor of the journal '' Statistical Science'' for 2014–2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Peter British statisticians Bayesian statisticians Fellows of the Royal Society Academics of the University of Bristol Living people Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society 1950 births Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award holders Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis Computational statisticians Alumni of the University of Sheffield Alumni of the University of Oxford