Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith FRSThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
is a distinguished British statistician and formerly Principal of
Queen Mary, University of LondonQueen Mary, University of London is a constituent college of the University of London...
. He was previously at Imperial College, London where he was head of the Mathematics Department. He is a member of the governing body of the
London Business SchoolLondon Business School is a leading international business school and a constituent college of the University of London. It is considered to be one of the world’s most highly regarded business schools and its flagship MBA program is frequently ranked among the global top five...
and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the
University of LondonBased primarily in London, England, United Kingdom, the University of London is a federal mega university made up of 31 affiliates: 19 separate university institutions, and 12 research institutes...
. He served on the Advisory Council for the Office of National Statistics from 1996–1998, was Statistical Advisor to the Nuclear Waste Inspectorate from 1991–1998 and was advisor on Operational Analysis to the Ministry of Defence from 1982–1987. He is a former President of the
Royal Statistical SocietyThe Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK. It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London . At that time there were many provincial statistics societies throughout Britain, but most have not survived...
. He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence...
in 2001. His FRS citation included "his diverse contributions to Bayesian statistics. His monographs are the most comprehensive available and his work has had a major impact on the development of monitoring tools for clinicians."
He is a proponent of Bayesian statistics and evidence-based practice—a general extension of
evidence-based medicineEvidence-based medicine aims to apply the best available evidence gained from the scientific method to medical decision making. It seeks to assess the quality of evidence of the risks and benefits of treatments ....
into all areas of public policy. He led the team which produced the
Smith ReportThe Smith Report was a report on corporate governance submitted to the UK government in 2003. It was concerned with the independence of auditors in the wake of the collapse of Arthur Andersen and the Enron scandal in the US in 2002...
on secondary mathematics education in the United Kingdom. He wrote an influential paper in 1990 along with Alan Gelfand (statistician), which drew attention to the significance of the Gibbs sampler technique for Bayesian
numerical integrationIn numerical analysis, numerical integration constitutes a broad family of algorithms for calculating the numerical value of a definite integral, and by extension, the term is also sometimes used to describe the numerical solution of differential equations. This article focuses on calculation of...
problems. He was also co-author of the seminal paper on the particle filter (Gordon, Salmond and Smith, 1993). Smith was educated at
Selwyn College, CambridgeSelwyn College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It was founded in 1882, in memory of the Rt Reverend George Augustus Selwyn , the first Bishop of New Zealand and Bishop of Lichfield . The college was founded by subscription, with an explicitly Christian mission...
and
University College LondonUniversity College London is a British university institution and a constituent college of the University of London, based primarily in Bloomsbury, London...
where his PhD supervisor was
Dennis LindleyDennis Victor Lindley is a British statistician, decision theorist and leading advocate of Bayesian statistics.Dennis Lindley grew up in the south-west London suburb of Surbiton. He was an only child and his father was a local building contractor...
.
In April 2008 Professor Adrian F.M. Smith was appointed as Director General of Science and Research at the
Department for Innovation, Universities and SkillsThe Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills was a UK government department created on 28 June 2007 to take over some of the functions of the disbanded departments of Education and Skills and Trade and Industry, and merged in June 2009 in to the newly formed Department for Business,...
(since merged with another department to form the UK's
BISThe Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is a ministerial department of the United Kingdom Government created on 6 June 2009 by the merger of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform .- Ministers for BIS...
). He took up his post in September 2008.
External links
There is a photograph at