Registration

This event is fully-booked and tickets for an overflow room, where a live feed to the main lecture will be shown, are now available via eventbrite (link to external site). 

The lecture will be followed by a reception and an opportunity to talk to some of Imperial’s data researchers.

Abstract

Big data and open data hold tremendous promise. But the hype often ignores the difficulties and risks associated with this promise. Beginning with the observation that people want answers to questions, not simply data, Statistician Professor David Hand explores some of the difficulties and risks which lie along the path to finding those answers, and examines how they may be overcome.

Biography

Professor David Hand is Senior Research Investigator and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London, where he formerly held the Chair in Statistics. He is also Chief Scientific Advisor to Winton Capital Management.

He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries, and has served (twice) as President of the Royal Statistical Society. He is a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority, and is Chair of the Board of the UK Administrative Data Research Network. He has published 300 scientific papers and 28 books, including Principles of Data Mining, Information Generation, Measurement Theory and Practice, The Improbability Principle, and The Wellbeing of Nations.

In 2002 he was awarded the Guy Medal of the Royal Statistical Society, and in 2012 he and his research group won the Credit Collections and Risk Award for Contributions to the Credit Industry. He was awarded the George Box Medal in 2016. In 2013 he was made OBE for services to research and innovation.

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About the Schrödinger lecture

The Erwin Schrödinger Lecture is an annual event named after the noted Austrian scientist. Schrödinger was a theoretical physicist and a significant contributor to the wave theory of matter, a form of quantum physics. He mathematically devised an equation of wave mechanics that bears his name. He was a co-recipient of the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics. Today he is popularly known for the paradox of Schrödinger’s cat.