Simon Bond
Name: Simon Bond
Job title: Senior Statistician
Institution: Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit
Link to NIHR : Early Phase Trials group, and steering committee
- How did you get interested in statistics?
Inspired by a great lecturer during my maths undergrad degree
- Describe your career path so far.
Stats MSc. 2 years in a hospital statistician role at Mount Vernon, PhD at Warwick, post doc at MRC BSU, 4 years in Pharma, Current job at Cambridge CTU
- What have been your career highlights?
Waking up to the radio mentioning a study I’d worked on in its news report. Helping to set up NIHR early phase studies group. Solving problems generally gives a sense of contributing to society ultimately.
- What challenges have you faced?
Balancing time vs quality. Learning how to delegate and manage a team.
- What type of skills you use in your job?
Communication, logic, programming, visual presentations.
- What do you do in a typical week?
As per most jobs, I answer a lot of emails. Contribute to grant applications for new studies, help set up such studies – protocols, data collection, stats analysis plans. Generally I oversee the analysis and interim reporting stages now, rather than directly carry them out. Carve out time to attend seminars or read methodology papers. Try to improve working practices in the longer term, to make steps more efficient and a higher quality.
- What do you find most interesting or motivating about your job?
When I have to try or learn something new and apply it for the first time, be that a software tool or piece of methodology or trial design or…
- Who has influenced you most up to now?
Fisher having invented most of the principles behind statistics. Nelder I think has been a great influence in a similar vein, somewhat in the background though.
