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David Spiegelhalter's Personal Home Page



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Contact Details
Statistical Laboratory
Centre for Mathematical Sciences
Wilberforce Road
Cambridge CB3 0WB,
Email: D.Spiegelhalter[at]statslab.cam.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 1223 337945
Fax: +44 1223 337956

Job


From October 2016 I have been Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication. This Centre, generously funded by the David and Claudia Harding Foundation, is based in the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics in Cambridge, and is dedicated to improving the way that quantitative evidence is used in society.


From October 2007 until December 2018 I was the Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk in the Statistical Laboratory, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge. I worked with a small team comprising Mike Pearson (web and animation), and Owen Smith (web), and our website was Understanding Uncertainty. This is an educational resource featuring the use of probability and statistics in everyday life, and makes extensive use of animations to help 'tell the story' of the data.


The Art of Statistics


The Art of Statistics is a Pelican book published by Penguin in March 2019 in the UK, and by Basic Books in the US in September 2019 - the books are identical apart from the subtitle and cover. The UK Pelican paperback was published in February 2020. This is its UK Amazon site, which is good for reviews (although you might want to buy from a different source so as to encourage diversity in book sales), and here is its US Amazon site.

It's had some good reviews from Nature, Evening Standard, Spectator, E and T magazine, Standpoint, Popular Science and particularly in the Financial Times.

There have been articles about it by Hannah Fry in the New Yorker , and by myself in Aeon Magazine and Scientific American .

I have done interviews for the Guardian podcast, RTE Business, Monocole radio.

Coincidences

The Cambridge Coincidence Collection started as part of filming for the BBC4 programme Tails you win: the science of chance , and since then over 5000 coincidences have been contributed to our website.



Immodest stuff


Media

Newspaper and magazine articles

I work closely with the Science Media Centre, receiving press releases under embargo on health stories with substantial statistical content, and having the opportunity for comments to be distributed to journalists. This leads to frequent quotes appearing in mainstream media, often on the topic of relative and absolute risks. Full articles include -

Online articles

I have also written popular articles and blogs, with some highlights including:

Radio

Television

Science Media Centre

I work with the Science Media Centre in providing frequent comments for journalists writing stories about risks. I was on the panel that drew up guidelines for press reporting of science stories requested by the Leveson Inquiry

Twitter

I am @d_spiegel, with over 66,000 followers (October 2020), hugely increased over the Covid pandemic.

Videos

There are numerous videos of my talks online - see later for a selection. Proper films include -

Engagement with newspapers

For example meetings with sub-editors at The Times and groups of reporters from the Guardian, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, and lecturing to trainee journalists and press officers.

Education work:


Outreach collaborations:


Academic collaborations:


Public and professional service:


Connections


Teaching Probability

teaching probability cover Teaching Probability by Jenny Gage and myself is published by Cambridge University Press and forms the first book in a series from Cambridge Mathematics. This is the home page for the book, and this is the resource site for teachers.

Sex by Numbers

sex by numbers cover Sex by Numbers is published by Profile Books and the Wellcome Collection, and accompanies the Wellcome's excellent Institute of Sexology exhibition which runs until September 20th 2015. There is a rather neat animation that features some of the stats. Full details here.

The Norm Chronicles

norm
The Norm Chronicles (with Michael Blastland) was published by Profile Books in June 2013. It has a promotional website.

Reviews (favourable!) have appeared in The Economist , Daily Mail , The Guardian , Sunday Times (Dominic Lawson) [paywall] , Bookbag , The Times , and a digested read in the Guardian .

Articles and interviews have appeared in Daily Telegraph , The Observer , The BIg Issue , Guardian Colour section , Pacific Standard , and an article by David Ropeik in the Big Think .

There is a video from the RSA featuring both the authors, and a Guardian podcast with an extensive interview with both of us.

Talks


I have given more than 500 talks on risk and statistics since 2007 to a huge range of audiences, including school students, university students, University of the Third Age, professional bodies, international conferences, and the civil service, including being a regular performer at science festivals (eg Cambridge, Cheltenham, New Scientist) and literary festivals (eg Hay, Glasgow, Oxford). Some recent highlights include: Older prominent presentations include:

Videos of talks


Many of my talks have appeared online, although I have not watched most of them and so can't comment on their quality. They can be found by putting my name into Youtube, but be warned that a lot of the material is repeated. Some more popular recent examples include
A sample of older talks is given below.

Recent Publications


Here is a list of publications since 2007: an earlier list is available here in a 2012 CV.

2020