Remembering James Nelson

The Department of Statistical Science organised an event on 12 September 2018, to commemorate the life and work of Dr James Nelson who worked with us from 2010 until his untimely death in September 2016. The event started with a scientific workshop at which some of James’ colleagues, collaborators and students gave an overview of some of their, and his work. They also shared some personal recollections, in which James’ unique and entertaining email style figured prominently – as did his warmth and generosity of spirit.

 

The scientific workshop was followed by a ceremony in which the UCL flag was lowered in James’ memory, and then by an evening reception at which the inaugural James Nelson prize was awarded. This prize has been established as a tribute to James’ superlative commitment to all of his research students: worth £500, it will be awarded annually to a research student in Statistical Science with the best published paper. Congratulations go to this year’s winner, James Pitkin, for his paper with Gordon Ross and Ioanna Manolopoulou entitled “Dirichlet Process Mixtures of Order Statistics with Applications to Retail Analytics” and published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C (Applied Statistics).

Many thanks are due to Aidan O’Keeffe, Harriet Moesli, Deepti Jawardena-Wilkinson and Joe Hird for all their hard work in making the event happen; and to all of the speakers and guests who travelled - considerable distances in some cases - to join us.

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