We are delighted to announce that Professor Sylvia Richardson will be the next RSS president after Deborah Ashby’s term of office comes to a close at the end of 2020.
Sylvia is director of the MRC Biostatistics Unit at the University of Cambridge, and was recently awarded a CBE for her services to medical statistics.
She was chosen from a list of nominees put forward by RSS fellows to the Society's President Nominating Committee. Council endorsed the nomination earlier this year and her nomination has been uncontested.
Sylvia said she was ‘greatly honoured’ to have been elected as RSS President. ‘I joined the Society in 1979 while I was living and working in France as I was attracted by the vibrant statistical tradition that it represents,’ she says. ‘Later, I became closely involved in its activities and enjoyed the privilege of helping to launch Significance, a magazine designed to have a broad appeal within the Society’s diverse membership and beyond.
‘I believe that we have a strong outreach role to play in fostering statistical thinking in many spheres and I look forward to supporting the Society in continuing to engage with the challenges brought by the data rich world in which we live.’
Sylvia joins a long and illustrious list of RSS presidents, the first of whom was inaugurated in 1834; all are listed on our our news story announcing her nomination.