Rate My Professor Samuel Watson

Professor Samuel Watson is Professor of Biostatistics in the Department of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Birmingham, where he serves as a statistician in the Institute of Applied Health Research. He holds a PhD in Health Sciences from the University of Warwick (2014), an MSc in Health Economics from City University of London (2011), and a BSc (Hons) in Natural Sciences from the University of Bath (2010). His research centres on applied statistics in public health and healthcare, with a focus on experimental design, particularly cluster randomised trials, spatial statistics, and their intersections. Watson employs methods for evaluation in low-resource settings, including cluster trial and survey methodologies using Bayesian approaches. He leads several major projects, such as the NIHR-funded Strategies for the efficient design of cluster randomised trials to evaluate novel interventions for infectious disease control (2025-2028), Optimising the delivery of Diabetes Distress informed care (D-Stress study, 2024-2029), and Evidence on quality and cost of care for women funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (2025-2027). As co-investigator, he contributes to initiatives like the NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Improving Health in Slums, the NIHR RIGHT programme on leprosy and Buruli ulcer, and stepped-wedge trials integrating mental health care in Malawi and remote consulting in Tanzania and Nigeria.