With wide-ranging experience in academia, public departments and in business consultation, we can think of no better person to have taken up the professional affairs vice presidency than Clare Morris. Although many members will already know her from her previous committed RSS work, we conducted a short interview to get to know a little more about her hopes and aspirations in the new role.
Congratulations on starting your new role as vice president for professional affairs! Can you share a bit about your background and journey so far in the field of statistics?
I’ve spent my career teaching in universities, although I’ve been fortunate to have many opportunities for consultancy with businesses and government departments. As very much an applied statistician, that contact with the users is vital to me. In the same way, I’ve worked a lot with academic colleagues in other disciplines, helping them ensure that their quantitative work is soundly based – so I have publications in some interesting places like the Journal of Sports Science!
And your work with businesses and government departments has taken you across the globe. What role do you see for the RSS in the increasingly globalised professional statistics community?
One of the things which has impressed me since I became involved with the Professional Affairs Committee (PAC) is the extent of our global reach, as indicated by the proportion of applications for professional status which come from outside the UK. I would like to think that the RSS can play a key role in supporting colleagues, particularly in developing economies, to ensure that decision-making is always based on sound and ethically informed data. I’d also like to see us forging more links with national statistical organisations, like those we already have with the Hong Kong Statistical Society, for example.
What aspects of the role are you most looking forward to?
As a member of PAC, I find it very rewarding to have oversight of applications for professional status (GradStat, CStat and now ADSP). It’s fascinating and inspiring to see the diversity of fields and roles in which our members are working. I’m also looking forward being involved with Council and Executive Committee at a moment in RSS history that is both challenging and filled with opportunity.
Definitely, and a lot has changed for us recently with regards to our standards and enhancing our professional offering. Do you see any other opportunities for new ways to support statisticians and data scientists over the next two years?
The field of data science is developing so rapidly at the moment that two years is a long time. It will be both exciting and demanding to be involved with the Alliance for Data Science Professionals, continuing to set up and maintain accreditation standards for both individuals and universities, work on which my predecessor Rachel Hilliam made such a great start. I think the way we, and the Alliance, are approaching it is exactly right – the individual learned societies retain their autonomy and processes, but within an agreed framework of standards. The key, since data science is such a broad field, will be in balancing sufficient flexibility with rigorous standards.
And how do you think chartered status for data scientists would impact the sector if approved?
There will be work to be done in establishing the new Chartered Data Scientist status as the accepted qualification for those working in the field. I think the RSS’s corporate partners will have a role to play here in encouraging and supporting their staff to follow the data science accreditation pathway.
Linking all this with your extensive experience in higher education, how can the RSS support recent graduates in pursuing careers in statistics and data?
I think the e-student membership is a great idea, but I would like to see that linked more firmly to the professional pathway – GradStat, CStat – following graduation, so that ex-students stay with us as they develop their careers. We already have a mentoring scheme; maybe students getting towards the end of their degree could be actively encouraged to link up with a mentor, to help them think about the avenues which might be open to them.
Finally, do you have a favourite statistic or piece of data?
As a cat-lover, it would have to be the fact that, on average, a domestic feline spends 70% of its life asleep. (This figure has been verified by personal observation.)