Award-winning statistician heads to Cambridge

We're delighted to welcome Dr Bradley Jones, Principal Research Fellow in the JMP division of SAS, to Cambridge on Thursday 22 June for a free seminar titled "How Definitive Screening Designs are Revolutionising Experimental Design".

Definitive Screening Designs (DSDs) were introduced in 2011 and have revolutionised Design of Experiments (DoE) in industry. As well as exploring the general theory behind DSDs, during the half day seminar Dr Jones will provide a “peek into the black box” of a new fitting method for them that provides a simple way for experimenters to find the most useful model. The method exploits one of the many desirable features of DSDs; that the main effects of DSDs are uncorrelated with each other and also uncorrelated to all two-factor interactions and quadratic effects. The seminar will highlight why this enables more people to get the benefits of DoE.

As our Managing Director Andrew Macpherson says, “to say we’re extremely excited to welcome Brad to Cambridge is an understatement. Having heard him speak at various overseas conferences and as big fans of his book Optimal Design of Experiments: A Case Study Approach, we’re delighted he’ll be discussing his Definitive Screening Designs in-depth with us. It’s such an important and ground-breaking topic when it comes to Design of Experiments that we’d encourage anyone with a passing interest in data analysis and statistics to attend, whatever software package they may be using in-house!” 

Bradley Jones, PhD, is the Principal Research Fellow in the JMP division of SAS, where he is responsible for the development of new methods in design of experiments (DOE). He built the JMP Custom Designer, a general and powerful tool for generating optimal experimental designs. He holds a patent on the use of DOE for minimizing registration errors in the manufacture of laminated circuit boards and is the inventor of the prediction profile plot for interactive exploration of multiple input and output response surfaces.

Jones is the 2012 recipient of the Statistics in Chemistry award from the American Statistical Association (ASA). In both 2009 and 2011, he received the American Society for Quality’s Brumbaugh Award for the paper making the largest contribution to industrial quality control. He also won the 2010 Lloyd S. Nelson Award for the article having the greatest immediate impact to practitioners. Jones is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Quality Technology and a Fellow of the ASA.

The event is the latest in a series of free seminars organised by Prism and SAS JMP, hosted at the Trinity Centre located on Cambridge Science Park.

“Each event not only gives attendees a unique opportunity to hear from some of the leading thinkers, programmers and researchers in the statistical world outside of major international conferences, but also the chance to pose questions to those speaking in an intimate setting. It also offers the chance for attendees to network with their industry peers – a welcome addition to these events which we’re keen to nurture” explains our Business Relationship Manager, Chris Challis.

All are welcome to this complimentary event, although registration in advance is essential due to limited space.