Consulting Environments and their Consequences - Dr Alun Pope

SSA Western Australia Branch Seminar 2021

Abstract: There are at least two different environments for applied statistical practice: the academic, scientific model is about the publication of research; the commercial, industrial model is about getting results that can be used in a timely fashion for profit.

I shall discuss, with illustrations from my experience in both academic and commercial consulting, some of the differences and similarities between different environments and some of the consequences these have for the way statistics is carried out, as well as the labelling of the process as statistics or data science, and whether this matters.

Biography: Alun is an Accredited Statistician (AStat) who since February 2018 has been a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University's Eastern Health Clinical School, now an Adjunct in that role. He is also the Director and CEO of Analytical Insight Pty Ltd, a consulting company.

After a PhD in Pure Mathematics (London) and an MSc in Statistics (ANU), Alun's career has followed two intersecting paths: as a teaching and research academic, and as a statistical consultant in industry and university environments.

He has worked at Newcastle, UNSW, Sydney and Monash universities. At Newcastle he became the Head of the Statistics Department in the 1990s, during which time he started commercial consulting for a variety of organisations, including CSL, Telstra and the Department of Defence.

He was Head of Research at the financial modelling company Rismark, leading a small team, Executive Manager St George Insurance Australia, Statistics Consultant at APRA, and was also a private consultant, as a partner in a small company (FarStar).

At the University of Sydney, Alun set up the Statistical Consulting unit in 2015 and was its Director until the end of 2017. Staff and students from a wide range of schools and disciplines had access to this unit and Alun and his staff advised on PhD theses and research projects in a variety of disciplines, such as archaeology, biochemistry, ecology, political science, music education, clinical trials, survey analysis, etc.

He has published papers on a range of pure and applied topics, as well as being the author of many consulting reports. Recent papers have appeared in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, Mycoses and Stroke.
He now lives in Perth, Western Australia.