The Statistical Consultant in Action

by David J. Hand (Editor), B. S. Everitt (Editor)

This book presents the human side of statistical consulting and illustrates the problems and opportunities that can arise for the modern consultant. Statistical problems occur in almost all areas of science, in medicine, in industry, in marketing, and in finance, and a wide range of interests is catered for by the twelve contributions to this unique volume. These contributions demonstrate that statistical consultancy provides a broad spectrum of intellectually stimulating problems, as well as being a vital tool in many aspects of modern life. The book will be valuable to university and college students of statistics and to all those who use statistical techniques in a consultancy environment of any kind.

204 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 1987

About the author

David J. Hand is Senior Research Investigator and Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London, and Chief Scientific Advisor to Winton Capital Management. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and a recipient of the Guy Medal of the Royal Statistical Society. He has served (twice) as President of the Royal Statistical Society, and is on the Board of the UK Statistics Authority. He has published 300 scientific papers and 25 books: his next book, The Improbability Principle, is due out in February 2014. He has broad research interests in areas including classification, data mining, anomaly detection, and the foundations of statistics. His applications interests include psychology, physics, and the retail credit industry - he and his research group won the 2012 Credit Collections and Risk Award for Contributions to the Credit Industry. He was made OBE for services to research and innovation in 2013.

Reviews

[Jerzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two chapters are pretty decent explorations of what it's like to be a statistician (both the joys and frustrations). But the rest of it consists of case studies that seem to grapple mostly with the specific statistical techniques applied, not with how the statisticians interacted with their clients and research team. I found Boen and Zahn's The Human Side of Statistical Consulting more broadly interesting and helpful.