Lecturer in Predictive Analytics
Roles and Responsibilities
School Lead, Edinburgh Centre for Data, Culture & Society
Background
Ben is a Lecturer in Predictive Analytics and joined the University of Edinburgh Business School from a McWilliams Fellowship in Cosmology at Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Physics and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center in the United States. Having previously spent time as a Visiting Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, Ben served as a Review Panelist for the NASA Science Mission Directorate and the US Department of Energy's Office of Science Graduate Student Research, and worked in the investment management sector as a Research Engineer for Machine Learning.
Further current affiliations include being a Member of the Centre for Statistics at the School of Mathematics and the Edinburgh Centre for Financial Innovations, as well as an Associate of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research. Ben holds a PhD in Astrophysics and an MSc in Artificial Intelligence, both from the University of Edinburgh, and an accreditation as a Professional Statistician from the American Statistical Association.
Research Interests
Ben’s research is centred on artificial intelligence and addresses domain challenges using machine learning, statistical inference and high-performance computing. With a strong focus on interdisciplinary collaborations, this covers impactful novel applications and the problem-driven development of new methodological approaches. Current research interests include problems in finance and criminology.
Primary fields for student supervision include the following topics:
- Pure and applied machine and deep learning
- Bayesian inference and generative models
- Financial technology and econometrics
- Spatio-temporal analysis and crime