Rate My Professor Kevin Wilson

Professor Kevin Wilson serves as Professor of Applied Statistics in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics at Newcastle University. He earned his MMathStat degree in 2007 and PhD in Bayesian Statistics in 2011, both from Newcastle University. Prior to his current position, he held roles as Research Associate in Risk and Reliability from May 2011 to August 2015 and Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde until August 2015. He is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis. Wilson contributes to the School Executive Board and teaches modules such as Research Methods in Psychology 2a, 2b, and 2c, as well as previous courses including Bayesian Methodology, Introduction to Statistical Inference, and Multivariate Data Analysis.

His research specializes in Bayesian analysis, encompassing elicitation of prior information from experts for subjective inference, vine copulas, uncertainty quantification, and design of experiments. Key application areas include engineering reliability and biostatistics, with emphasis on diagnostic test design and analysis, cluster randomized trials, assurance for sample size calculations, risk and reliability analysis, and Bayes linear methods. Notable publications include 'Reconciliation of expert priors for quantities and events and application within the probabilistic Delphi method' (Bayesian Analysis, 2024, with Farrow, French, and Hartley); 'Bayesian design and analysis of two-arm cluster randomized trials using assurance' (Statistics in Medicine, 2023); 'Bayesian sample size determination for diagnostic accuracy studies' (Statistics in Medicine, 2022, with Williamson, Allen et al.); 'Hybrid sample size calculations for cluster randomised trials using assurance' (Clinical Trials, 2025, with Williamson and Tishkovskaya); 'NUBO: A Transparent Python Package for Bayesian Optimization' (Journal of Statistical Software, 2025, with Diessner and Whalley); 'Specification of Informative Prior Distributions for Multinomial Models Using Vine Copulas' (Bayesian Analysis, 2018); and 'Approximate Uncertainty Modeling in Risk Analysis with Vine Copulas' (Risk Analysis, 2016, with Bedford and Daneshkhah). As principal investigator, he leads a Leverhulme grant on loss-based Bayesian additive regression trees and the EPSRC-funded SaFEGen project for efficient evidence generation in diagnostic development. He is co-investigator on the Horizon Europe Holifood project addressing food systems risks and the EPSRC EnAble project on turbulent drag reduction, alongside previous roles in UK Centre for Energy Systems Integration and Flood-PREPARED. Wilson provides consultancy to organizations including NICE, Costello Medical, Rocket Medical, Northern Gas Networks, Mologic, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He has delivered public lectures on expert judgement elicitation at events such as the Risk and Uncertainty Conference (2024), ISBA World Meeting (2021), and Isaac Newton Institute Workshop (2020).