Ruth King (née Langham)

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FLSW The Learned Society of Wales () is a national academy, learned society and Charitable organization, charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the W ...

is the current Thomas Bayes' Chair of Statistics in the School of Mathematics at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, having held the position since 2015. Prior to this she held positions at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and the

University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...

. Her main research interests are "Capture-recapture;

Bayesian inference Bayesian inference ( or ) is a method of statistical inference in which Bayes' theorem is used to calculate a probability of a hypothesis, given prior evidence, and update it as more information becomes available. Fundamentally, Bayesian infer ...

; hidden (semi-)

Markov model In probability theory, a Markov model is a stochastic model used to Mathematical model, model pseudo-randomly changing systems. It is assumed that future states depend only on the current state, not on the events that occurred before it (that is, ...

s; state-space models; missing data; applications in

ecology Ecology () is the natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...

and

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and Risk factor (epidemiology), determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population, and application of this knowledge to prevent dise ...

"Her research focuses on the development of novel statistical techniques applied to a range of different application areas, particularly within ecology, epidemiology or medicine. This research is often interdisciplinary in nature, relying on strong collaborative links with other researchers."

She was recognised by the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

as one of Scotland's leading female scientists in their exhibition and elected as a Fellow in 2018. She was also elected a fellow of the

Learned Society of Wales The Learned Society of Wales () is a national academy, learned society and Charitable organization, charity that exists to "celebrate, recognise, preserve, protect and encourage excellence in all of the scholarly disciplines", and to serve the W ...

in 2017, and a Fellow of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts ...

in 2022.

Career and research

She graduated with a BSc in Mathematics with Statistics in 1998, and completed a PhD in 2001, both from 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 ...

. In her final year of undergraduate she was awarded the 'Henry Ronald Hasse Prize'. Her PhD was supervised by Steve Brooks. Following her PhD she worked as a research associate at the University of Cambridge, from 2001 to 2003. From 2003 to 2005, she was an

EPSRC The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is a British Research Council that provides government funding for grants to undertake research and postgraduate degrees in engineering and the physical sciences, mainly to univers ...

post-doctoral fellow. From 2003 to 2010, she was a lecturer in Statistics at the University of St Andrews, then a reader in Statistics from 2010 to 2015. Currently, she is the Thomas Bayes' Chair of Statistics at the University of Edinburgh, a post she has held since 2015. She has spoken at numerous Conferences, in a number of countries, throughout her career. In 2019, she co-organised the ICMS workshop on "Addressing Statistical Challenges of Modern Technological Advances" as well as the "Global Expert Working Group on Multiple Systems Estimation of Modern Slavery" in Edinburgh. She has 69 publications on "Google Scholar" since 2001, with a total of 1370 citations since 2014 (as of June 2019), and 2213 citations overall. Since 2017 she has been part of the team delivering the University of Edinburgh's 'Unlocking the World of Data' course on

edX edX is an American For-profit higher education in the United States, for-profit massive open online course provider. It was founded by MIT and Harvard. It is a subsidiary of 2U (company), 2U. History edX was founded in May 2012 by the admi ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:King, Ruth Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of the University of Bristol British statisticians Women statisticians Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Learned Society of Wales Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Biostatisticians