Valerie Susan Isham is a British applied probabilist

Applied probability

Much research involving probability is done under the auspices of applied probability, the application of probability theory to other scientific and engineering domains...

 and currently President of the Royal Statistical Society

President of the Royal Statistical Society

The President of the Royal Statistical Society is the head of the Royal Statistical Society , elected biannually by the Fellows of the Society. ....

.

Isham's research interests in include point process

Point process

In statistics and probability theory, a point process is a type of random process for which any one realisation consists of a set of isolated points either in time or geographical space, or in even more general spaces...

es, spatial processes, spatio-temporal processes and population process

Population process

In applied probability, a population process is a Markov chain in which the state of the chain is analogous to the number of individuals in a population , and changes to the state are analogous to the addition or removal of individuals from the population.Although named by analogy to biological...

es. She went to Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...

 (B.Sc.

Bachelor of Science

A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...

, Ph.D.

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

) where she was a student of a prominent statistician David Cox

David Cox (statistician)

Sir David Roxbee Cox FRS is a prominent British statistician.-Early years:Cox studied mathematics at St. John's College, Cambridge and obtained his PhD from the University of Leeds in 1949, advised by Henry Daniels and Bernard Welch.-Career:He was employed from 1944 to 1946 at the Royal Aircraft...

. She has been a professor of probability and statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 at University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

 since 1992. –2012, she is the president of the Royal Statistical Society

Royal Statistical Society

The Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...

. She was awarded its Guy Medal

Guy Medal

The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Gold Medal is awarded triennially, the other two are awarded annually...

in Bronze in 1990.