Brian David Ripley is a renowned British statistician

Statistician

A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...

. Since 1990, he has been professor of applied statistics at the University of Oxford

University of Oxford

The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...

 and is also a professorial fellow at St Peter's College

St Peter's College, Oxford

St Peter's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, located in New Inn Hall Street. It occupies the site of two of the University's oldest Inns, or medieval hostels - Bishop Trellick's, later New Inn Hall, and Rose Hall - both of which were...

.

Ripley has made contributions to the fields of spatial statistics and pattern recognition

Pattern recognition

In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...

. His work on artificial neural network

Artificial neural network

An artificial neural network , usually called neural network , is a mathematical model or computational model that is inspired by the structure and/or functional aspects of biological neural networks. A neural network consists of an interconnected group of artificial neurons, and it processes...

s in the 1990s helped to bring aspects of machine learning

Machine learning

Machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence, is a scientific discipline concerned with the design and development of algorithms that allow computers to evolve behaviors based on empirical data, such as from sensor data or databases...

 and data mining

Data mining

Data mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...

 to the attention of statistical audiences. He has emphasised the value of robust statistics

Robust statistics

Robust statistics provides an alternative approach to classical statistical methods. The motivation is to produce estimators that are not unduly affected by small departures from model assumptions.- Introduction :...

 in his books Modern Applied Statistics with S and Pattern Recognition and Neural Networks.

Ripley has been influential in the development of the S programming language

S programming language

S is a statistical programming language developed primarily by John Chambers and Rick Becker and Allan Wilks of Bell Laboratories...

 and its implementations in S-PLUS

S-PLUS

S-PLUS is a commercial implementation of the S programming language sold by TIBCO Software Inc..It features object-oriented programming capabilities and advanced analytical algorithms.-Historical timeline:...

 and R

R (programming language)

R is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The R language is widely used among statisticians for developing statistical software, and R is widely used for statistical software development and data analysis....

, and is a prominent contributor to the R-help electronic mailing list

Electronic mailing list

An electronic mailing list is a special usage of email that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users. It is similar to a traditional mailing list — a list of names and addresses — as might be kept by an organization for sending publications to...

. He has coauthored two books based on S, Modern Applied Statistics with S and S Programming.

He was educated at the University of Cambridge

University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

, where he was awarded both the Smith's Prize

Smith's Prize

The Smith's Prize was the name of each of two prizes awarded annually to two research students in theoretical Physics, mathematics and applied mathematics at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England.- History :...

 and the Rollo Davidson Prize. The university also awarded him the Adams Prize

Adams Prize

The Adams Prize is awarded each year by the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and St John's College to a young, UK based mathematician for first-class international research in the Mathematical Sciences....

 in 1987 for an essay entitled Statistical Inference for Spatial Processes, later published as a book. He served on the faculty of Imperial College, London from 1976 until 1983, when he moved to the University of Strathclyde

University of Strathclyde

The University of Strathclyde , Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university...

.

Authored books

• Ripley, B. D. (1981) Spatial Statistics. Wiley, 252pp.
• Ripley, B. D. (1983) Stochastic Simulation. Wiley, ISBN 0-471-81884-4.
• Ripley, B. D. (1996) Pattern Recognition and Neural Networks. Cambridge University Press. 403 pages. ISBN 0-521-46086-7.
• Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D. (2000) S Programming. Springer, 264pp. ISBN 9780387989662.
• Venables, W. N. and Ripley, B. D. (2002) Modern Applied Statistics with S (Fourth Edition; previous editions published as Modern Applied Statistics with S-PLUS in 1994, 1997 & 1999). Springer, 462pp. ISBN 9780387954578.

External links

• Brian Ripley's home page at the University of Oxford