Sir Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith,

PRS PRS or prs may refer to: Science and technology * Peripheral Reflex System, an implementation of autonomous peripheral operations in microcontrollers * Personal response system, in audience response * Phenotypic response surfaces, in medicine * P ...

(born 9 September 1946) is a British statistician who is chief executive of the

Alan Turing Institute The Alan Turing Institute is the United Kingdom's national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, founded in 2015 and largely funded by the UK government. It is named after Alan Turing, the British mathematician and computing p ...

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 Selwyn College, Cambridge is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1882 by the Selwyn Memorial Committee in memory of George Selwyn (bishop of Lichfield), Georg ...

, 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 Dennis Victor Lindley (25 July 1923 – 14 December 2013) was an English statistician, decision theorist and leading advocate of Bayesian statistics. Biography Lindley grew up in the south-west London suburb of Surbiton. He was an only child a ...

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 Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a cultural district in South Kensington that included museums ...

, 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

. Smith is a member of the governing body of the

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degree, Master's degrees in management and finance, Master of B ...

. 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 The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

. 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 In statistics, Gibbs sampling or a Gibbs sampler is a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for sampling from a specified multivariate probability distribution when direct sampling from the joint distribution is difficult, but sampling from ...

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 Particle filters, also known as sequential Monte Carlo methods, are a set of Monte Carlo algorithms used to find approximate solutions for filtering problems for nonlinear state-space systems, such as signal processing and Bayesian statistical ...

(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 Statistics education is the practice of teaching and learning of statistics, along with the associated scholarly research. Statistics is both a formal science and a practical theory of scientific inquiry, and both aspects are considered in stati ...

, Smith led the team which produced the

Smith Report The Smith Report was a report on corporate governance submitted to the UK government in 2003. It was concerned with the independence of auditors in the wake of the collapse of Arthur Andersen and the Enron scandal in the US in 2002. Its recommend ...

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 The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) was a UK government department created on 28 June 2007 to take over some of the functions of the Department of Education and Skills and of the Department of Trade and Industry. Its h ...

(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 A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

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 ''The Life Scientific'' is a BBC Radio 4 science programme, presented by Jim Al-Khalili, in which each episode is dedicated to the biography and work of a living scientist. The programme consists of an interview between Al-Khalili and the featur ...

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 The University of Plymouth is a public research university based predominantly in Plymouth, England, where the main campus is located, but the university has campuses and affiliated colleges across South West England. With students, it is the ...

, 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 The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (, UFRJ) is a public university, public research university in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the largest federal university in the country and is one of the Brazilian centers of excellence in teaching and r ...

. He also was awarded Honorary Doctorates from City University,

University of Loughborough Loughborough University (abbreviated as ''Lough'' or ''Lboro'' for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when L ...

, Queen Mary and

Bibliography

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References

External links