Each year, the Royal Statistical Society awards medals and prizes to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to statistics and data science. The 2026 honours recognise leading figures whose work has advanced both the discipline and its application across society.
This year’s recipients highlight the wide-ranging influence of statistics, from shaping public policy and improving health outcomes to advancing theoretical foundations and strengthening professional practice. Collectively, their work demonstrates how statistical thinking underpins decision-making across government, industry and research.
Sir John Aston, RSS President, said:
“Each year, our honours recognise the depth, diversity and real-world impact of statistics and data science. This year’s recipients have made exceptional contributions across theory, application and service to the profession. Their work demonstrates the vital role statistics plays in addressing some of the most important challenges facing society today.”
The 2026 honours recipients are:
Professor Peter McCullagh – Guy Medal in Gold
Peter McCullagh is recognised for a long list of pivotal contributions to statistical theory, both broad in range and exceptional in depth. He was a principal architect of the theory and application of generalised linear models, and has contributed to group-theoretical foundations and tensor methods for statistical modelling. His work has had lasting impact across a wide range of areas, including statistical inference and multiple discussion papers in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B.
Professor Christl Donnelly – Guy Medal in Silver
Christl Donnelly is awarded for her outstanding contributions to the development and application of statistical and biomathematical methods to analyse infectious diseases. Her work has been central to improving understanding of disease transmission, including COVID-19, and has informed public health policy responses. She has also contributed to modelling a range of infectious diseases including Zika virus, Ebola and Foot & Mouth Disease.
Dr Maria Skoularidou – Guy Medal in Bronze
Maria Skoularidou is recognised for her expertise in high-dimensional statistics, including contributions to the estimation of discrete and tabular data. Her work spans both methodological development and applications in healthcare data, including gene expression analysis, and contributes to wider advances in machine learning.
Pr
ofessor Finn Lindgren – Barnett Award
Finn Lindgren is awarded for strong and sustained contributions to environmental statistics, including significant methodological advances and software development. His work has enabled flexible modelling of large spatial datasets, with impact across climate, ecology and health.
Dr Sophie Carr – Chambers Medal
Sophie Carr is recognised for outstanding service to the Royal Statistical Society. She has made significant contributions to education and data literacy, supported the Society’s work across multiple areas, and played an important role in governance, strategy and the development of initiatives in AI and data science.
The awards will be presented at the RSS Annual Conference in Bournemouth on Wednesday 9 September 2026.