RSS Names Next President

Venerable UK institution the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) has announced that Cambridge professor and former US Census Bureau employee Sir John Aston will be its next President, once Dr Andrew Garrett completes his term of office at the end of 2024.

The Society was founded in 1834, has around 10,000 members worldwide and functions as a learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity promoting statistics, data and evidence for the public good. It appointed Dr Garrett for his two-year term just a year ago but has this time given more advance notice of the changeover. It also has a new Chief Executive, Dr Sarah Cumbers, starting this coming month.

Aston is the Harding Professor of Statistics in Public Life at the University of Cambridge, where his work includes developing statistical techniques for public policy and improving the use of quantitative methods in public policy debates. He served from 2017 to 2020 as the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Home Office, and was involved in the UK's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. He was knighted in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to statistics and public policymaking. Earlier in his career he worked at the US Census Bureau, Academia Sinica (Taiwan) and the University of Warwick.

The RSS President is recommended from a list of nominees put forward by the Society's fellows to a Nominating Committee, and www.rss.org.uk/about/people/past-presidents former holders of the title include Labour prime minister Harold Wilson, Prof Denise Lievesley and Sir David Spiegelhalter.

Garrett says of the appointment: 'I am thrilled that John is to be our next president. He brings a wealth of experience from across the discipline and his commitment to improving the use of data in public life and policymaking is in perfect alignment with the RSS's mission to promote a world with data at the heart of decision making'.

Web site: www.rss.org.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.