MSc (by Dissertation) Bio-Statistics

University of Essex

Our MSD Biostatistics is a research degree within the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Our biostatistics team carries out research in statistical analysis, such as survival analysis, longitudinal analysis, Bayesian statistics, analysis of biological and behavioural data and spatial statistics, with collaboration areas including clinical trials, genetics, infectious disease and data visualisation, but you are invited to contact the department to discuss other potential research areas.

Research links and joint projects with our University's School of Life Sciences, School of Health and Social Care and the Institute for Social and Economic Research, provide you with opportunities for collaborative research.

Our staff are strongly committed to research and teaching. They have published several well-regarded textbooks and are world leaders in their individual specialisms, with their papers appearing in learned journals such as; Biostatistics, Statistics in Medicine, BMC Women's Health, Methods of Information in Medicine, and Biometrical Journal.

Our Department of Mathematical Sciences is genuinely innovative and student focused. Our research groups are working on a broad range of collaborative areas tackling real-world issues. Here are a few examples:

• Our data scientists carefully consider how not to lie, and how not to get lied to with data. Interpreting data correctly is especially important because much of our data science research is applied directly or indirectly to social policies, including health, care and education.
• We do practical research with financial data (for example, assessing the risk of collapse of the UK’s banking system) as well as theoretical research in financial instruments such as insurance policies or asset portfolios.
• We also research how physical processes develop in time and space. Applications of this range from modelling epilepsy to modelling electronic cables.
• Our optimisation experts work out how to do the same job with less resource, or how to do more with the same resource.
• Our pure maths group are currently working on two new funded projects entitled ‘Machine learning for recognising tangled 3D objects’ and ‘Searching for gems in the landscape of cyclically presented groups’.

We also do research into mathematical education and use exciting technologies such as electroencephalography or eye tracking to measure exactly what a learner is feeling. Our research aims to encourage the implementation of ‘the four Cs’ of modern education, which are critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

Your future

Studying a research degree in mathematics gives you the opportunity to develop new skills and enhance your CV.

Our graduates have joined organisations like the Met Office, the Ministry of Defence, and companies based in the City of London, others have remained in academia. There is a high demand for those with a numerate background in all sectors of the economy, so our graduates are sought after in the UK and abroad.