The next PhD Open Days will take place on Wednesday 10 November (in-person) and Wednesday 17 November (virtual) at the Department of Statistics, University of Warwick.

37 Warwick researchers have been named as Fellows of the Alan Turing Institute this year, including 9 colleagues from the Department of Statistics. Congratulations to Julia Brettschneider, Theo Damoulas, Paul Jenkins, Adam Johansen, Ioannis Kosmidis, Chenlei Leng, Gareth Roberts, Jim Smith and Yi Yu.

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/university_of_warwick_names_37_researchers_who_become_turing_fellows_this_academic_year1

The winner of this year’s Faculty postdoctoral prize is Jure Vogrinc for "Counterexamples for optimal scaling of Metropolis-Hastings chains with rough target densities". The winner of this year’s Faculty Thesis Prize and John Copas Prize is David Selby (citation: for an extremely innovative and creative thesis on "Statistical modelling of citation networks, research influence and journal prestige". This is a very well-presented piece of work that stands out for its wealth of innovative ideas and the new insights it provides in this developing field.) Joint winners of this year’s Harrison Award are Lewis Rendell and Giorgos Vasdekis, both commended for their substantial theoretical and methodological contributions to computational statistics.

Three major UK utility providers form new partnership with the National Digital Twin programme in critical step toward resilient infrastructure in developing a Climate Resilience Demonstrator (CReDo). The collaboration will apply the UK’s state of the art capabilities in systems engineering, digital asset management and modelling to the climate crisis to plan a more resilient built environment, keeping us all safer in the face of flooding and extreme weather. Professor Jim Q. Smith has joined this collaboration and will lead the elicitation of the vulnerability of asset owners' critical infrastructure relevant to assessing and mitigating the deepening threats posed to water, telecommunications and power supply as a result of increasing flooding risks induced by climate change.

The Athena Swan Charter is an international framework to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research. It was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment. The Charter is now used more broadly, to address barriers to progression that affect all under represented groups in HE.

Previously the department held a Bronze Award which showed its initial investment into consideration of gender equality. The Silver Award celebrates the departments progress in identifying and tackling inequalities.

The Statistics Department has signed up to the Athena Swan Charter by:
1) Working towards gender equality and an equitable working environment for students, academics and support staff.
2) Carrying out a self-assessment to identify areas of good practice alongside areas for improvement.
3) Taking forward an action plan covering a range of issues such as recruitment, training, mentoring and flexible working patterns.
4) Being committed to encouraging more female representation among undergraduate and postgraduate students, supporting improved progression of women into academia.
5) Committing ourselves to share good practice with other departments and institutions, which is a key element in aiming for the Gold Award.

The Silver Award is valid until at least August 2026.