Statistics - MSc, PhD drafted

Program Overview

The Statistics program at Kent University offers students the opportunity to develop practical, mathematical, and computing skills in statistics while working on real-world problems under the guidance of research-active staff. Graduates are prepared for careers in industry, government, research, and teaching, and benefit from research interests that include Bayesian statistics, biological and health statistics, machine learning, nonparametric statistics, and economics and finance.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

These programmes offer the opportunity to begin or consolidate your research career under the guidance of internationally renowned researchers and professionals in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science (SMSAS). Statistics at Kent provides:

• a programme that gives you the opportunity to develop practical, mathematical and computing skills in statistics, while working on challenging and important problems relevant to a broad range of potential employers
• teaching and supervision by staff who are research-active, with established reputations and who are accessible, supportive and genuinely interested in your work
• advanced and accessible computing and other facilities
• a congenial work atmosphere with pleasant surroundings, where you can socialise and discuss issues with a community of other students.

Teaching:

The School has a strong reputation for world-class research and a well-established system of support and training, with a high level of contact between staff and research students. Postgraduate students develop analytical, communication and research skills. Developing computational skills and applying them to mathematical problems forms a significant part of the postgraduate training in the School. We encourage all postgraduate statistics students to take part in statistics seminars and to help in tutorial classes.

Careers:

Students often go into careers as professional statisticians in industry, government, research and teaching but our programmes also prepare you for careers in other fields requiring a strong statistical background. You have the opportunity to attend careers talks from professional statisticians working in industry and to attend networking meetings with employers. Our graduates have started careers in diverse areas such as the pharmaceutical industry, financial services and sports betting.

Other:

Research interests are diverse and include: Bayesian statistics; bioinformatics; biometry; ecological statistics; epidemic modelling; medical statistics; nonparametric statistics and semi-parametric modelling; risk and queueing theory; shape statistics. Kent is a leading research university, meaning that you will be informed about new discussions and developments by the people making them. This means your work will have real potential to make a difference. Statistical Ecology There has been research in the area of statistical ecology at Kent for many years. We are part of the National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE), which was established in 2005. Bayesian statistics The research conducted in this area at Kent is mainly on Bayesian variable selection, Bayesian model fitting, Bayesian nonparametric methods, Markov chain Monte Carlo with applications. Biological and health statistics Research is focused on statistical modelling and inference in biology and genetics with applications in complex disease studies. Over the past few decades, large amounts of complex data have been produced by high through-put biotechnologies. The grand challenges offered to statisticians include developing scalable statistical methods for extracting useful information from the data, modelling biological systems with the data, and fostering innovation in global health research. Machine learning This theme encompasses both theory and applications. Theory is involved with supervised and unsupervised learning, matrix factorisation, modelling of high-dimensional time series, differential privacy, deep learning and networks, shape analysis and statistics on manifolds, and neuroimaging. Applications in biology, industry, medicine and psychiatry. Often new computational methods are the key to analysing complex big data problems. Nonparametric statistics In order to describe the data, it is common in statistics to assume a specific probability model. Nonparametric methods provide statistical tools for addressing inference in these situations. Economics and finance At Kent there is particular interest in the use of nonparametric methods including quantile regression and Bayesian nonparametric approaches. Application areas include modelling of the business cycle and capacity utilisation, calculating sovereign credit ratings, modelling of stock return data, and predicting inflation. Kent’s world-class academics provide research students with excellent supervision. The academic staff in this school and their research interests are shown below. You are strongly encouraged to contact the school to discuss your proposed research and potential supervision prior to making an application. Please note, it is possible for students to be supervised by a member of academic staff from any of Kent’s schools, providing their expertise matches your research interests. Use our ‘find a supervisor’ search to search by staff member or keyword. Postgraduate resources Kent’s Computing Service central facility runs Windows. Within the School, postgraduate students can use a range of UNIX servers and workstations. Packages available include R, SAS, MATLAB, SPSS and MINITAB. Dynamic publishing culture Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: Annals of Statistics; Biometrics; Biometrika; Journal of Royal Society, Series B; Statistics and Computing. Professional recognition The taught programmes in Statistics and Statistics with Finance provide exemption from the professional examinations of the Royal Statistical Society and qualification for Graduate Statistician status. Researcher Development Programme Kent's Graduate School co-ordinates the Researcher Development Programme for research students, which includes workshops focused on research, specialist and transferable skills. The programme is mapped to the national Researcher Development Framework and covers a diverse range of topics, including subject-specific research skills, research management, personal effectiveness, communication skills, networking and teamworking, and career management skills.

The 2024/25 annual tuition fees for this course are: Statistics - MSc at Canterbury Statistics - PhD at Canterbury UK £4,786 EU £18,600 International £18,600 UK £2,393 EU £9,300 International £9,300