Sir Bernard Silverman is an eminent British Statistician whose career has spanned academia, central government and public office. He will discuss his wide ranging career in statistics with Professor Denise Lievesley, herself an distinguished British social statistician.

After leaving Cambridge University with a PhD in 1977, Sir Bernard entered university teaching and research, ultimately holding professorships in statistics at, successively, the universities of Bath, Bristol and Oxford.  He was President of the Royal Statistical Society in 2010 before stepping down to become Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office until 2017. Since 2018, Sir Bernard has been part-time Professor of Modern Slavery Statistics at University of Nottingham and also has a portfolio of roles in Government, as chair of the Geospatial Commission, the Technology Advisory Panel to the Investigatory Powers Commissioner, and the Methodological Assurance Panel for the Census.  He was awarded a knighthood in 2018 for public service and services to science. 

After graduating from University College, University of London, Denise spent her career working as an applied statistician nationally and in the UN, before moving into academia.  She became Dean of Social Science and Public Policy at Kings College, London, and moved to be Principal of Green Templeton College, Oxford in 2015. Denise was President of the Royal Statistical Society from 1999 to 2001 and President of the International Statistical Institute from 2007 to 2009.  She was awarded the CBE for services to social science in 2014.

This is an online only event.

The interview will be preceded by the Annual General Meeting of the RSS History of Statistics Section