This week at Lunch n’ Learn, our speaker, Dr Alex Speirs, spoke about how statisticians help understand disease and develop medicines for the future. He spoke about his academic journey and his experience transitioning from pharmacology to teaching. We then heard about the research he conducted at Imperial College; the Institute of Psychiatry, Phycology & Neuroscience at Kings College London; and eventually, as the Principal Statistician at the Statistics & Data Science Innovation Hub at GSK. Some of this research included the relationship between adolescent depression, anxiety, and smartphone use. The students learned about maths’ contribution to medicine, like how randomisation is used in medical trials to avoid bias and how correlation does not imply causation. As a doctoral epidemiology researcher, Dr Speirs writes lots of code for his own statistical models when designing experiments or trials, performs data analysis and makes decisions that could potentially affect the lives of thousands of people.

The students asked many questions, and we had another inspiring lecture at Lunch N’ Learn!

Gaby da Silveira Pinheiro, STEAM Prefect and Lower Sixth Student