Dr Paul Thompson CStat

Royal Statistical Society Chartered Statistician (2023) 

PhD Statistics, University of Plymouth (2009) 

BSc (Hons) Mathematics, University of Plymouth (2005)

Paul completed a degree in Mathematics at the University of Plymouth, followed by an EPSRC-funded PhD in Statistics in the field of Extreme Value Theory and Bayesian non-parametric quantile regression with splines. 

Following his PhD, he was a freelance statistical consultant/fellow working with both the Fetal Medicine Foundation, London and the Medical Statistics group at Peninsula Medical School (Previous Exeter and Plymouth Universities joint endeavour). This research fed directly into the NHS screening programme for Down syndrome in England and sought to disentangle risk profiles of Down syndrome pregnancies and mothers with increased risk of preeclampsia.

Following this role, he moved to a permanent position as a senior statistician within the same medical statistics group and worked on a 5-year NIHR methods grant looking at developments in trial design for neurodegenerative diseases (specifically, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease).

He then moved to Oxford University’s Experimental Psychology department as a statistician in two developmental psychology groups with focuses on learning difficulties (Dyslexia) and Laterality of the brain with respect to language in children and autism respectively. He led statistical method developments in those groups and advised several other groups while in the department. 

Prior to his post at the University of Birmingham, Paul was faculty at the Centre for Research in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (CIDD) at the University of Warwick, initially as Research Fellow, then Assistant Professor in Applied Statistics.

Paul is interested in supervising postgraduate researchers in any of the following areas:

• Applied statistics: longitudinal modelling, randomised controlled trial design in social care or special education.
• Interdisciplinary and applied health or social care research, using quantitative methods

Please do feel free to get in contact, with a research proposal and CV, if you are interested in working with Paul to complete your PhD research.

Completed Students:

Wenyuan Liu (Warwick): Mental Health in families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder in the UK and Mainland China (2024).

Caitlin Williams (Warwick): Families as Systems: Moving Beyond Dyadic Relationships and Exploring Longitudinal Psychological Adjustment in Families of Children with Intellectual Disabilities (2024)

Research interests 

Broadly, the application and development of statistical methodology to real applied problems. He has specific areas of interest in: Bayesian methods and longitudinal modelling using semiparametric and nonparametric methods. 

Paul’s main applied areas of research relate to intervention design for randomised controlled trials in education, social care, and health settings. In particular, he has an interest in longitudinal research and trials dedicated to improving research evidence regarding inequalities experienced by people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (including autism).

He has additional interests in open science and reproducible research practices. Paul is passionate about making statistical analysis and quantitative design information accessible to practitioner audiences. Recently (December 2023) having had a textbook published by CRC press with Co-author Professor Dorothy Bishop, Emeritus Professor, University of Oxford, entitled Evaluating What Works: An Intuitive Guide to interventions for Practitioners.

Paul is a member of the editorial board for Journal of Intellectual Disability Research as the consulting editor for statistics (May 2022-present; JIDR Ranked No.1 in Intellectual Disability research journals). 

He also works with external stakeholders, including The Fetal Medicine Foundation, The SpLD Assessment Standards Committee (SASC), the Professional Association of Teachers of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties (Patoss), Council for Disabled Children, CEREBRA, and The Challenging Behaviour Foundation.