David Hand

David Hand, professor of statistics who joined Imperial in 1999, uses his expertise to help banks fight credit card fraud and calculate credit risks, allowing them to decide whom to offer loans.

He becomes the only current academic at Imperial to be made a Fellow, as well as the third member of Imperial staff to be elected after science historians, Professor A Rupert Hall and Dr Marie Boas Hall in 1978 and 1994 respectively.

"I was absolutely delighted when I received the letter," he said. "I am very much aware of what a tremendous honour it is. I've been exceptionally fortunate to have worked on a wide range of fascinating problems, and I've also been exceptionally fortunate to have worked in some marvellous places with the friendliest and most supportive groups of people one could hope to meet."

Having begun his career applying statistics to problems in medicine and psychology, he now specialises in data mining — the analysis of huge datasets of information such as online customer databases or credit card transactions, to make insights and predict trends in people's behaviour.

His credit research group is the UK's leading research group in applying statistical methods in banking, and has a reputation that means many banks and lenders seek his expertise when they need to understand how to trawl and read the vast amount of data collected daily.

"When you're looking at the future, you need to base your decision using information about the bad people as much as the good, otherwise you only have half the data set," he added. "This is a fundamental problem for banks trying to decide who they are going to give loans to in the future."