MY ACADEMIC CV

This page provides a summary of my skills and experience.

OVERVIEW

I am a statistician working in the field of movement ecology. I am attempting to find more efficient and accessible methods for statistical inference on individual animal movement data in continuous time. It is my hope that my efforts will stimulate the uptake of these methods by ecologists. On this theme, I have a general interest in both outreach and cross-discipline collaboration.

Research experience

Efficient Individual Animal Movement Modelling in Continuous Time (2021-present)

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield, supervised by Prof. Paul Blackwell and funded directly by the EPSRC. We are currently preparing a paper for publication:

Grainger, D. & Blackwell, P.G. (2024). Rapid Statistical Modelling of Individual Animal Movement Data in Continuous Time. [Manuscript in preperation].

The Mathematical Modelling of a Zombie Apocalypse (2019-2020)

For my Masters dissertation, supervised by Prof. Jonathan Potts, I developed deterministic spatiotemporal 'zombie movement' models based on popular films. In doing so, I created a 'survival guide'. This work serves as an accessible introduction to animal movement and disease modelling.

Education

2016-2020

MMath Mathematics with First Class Honours (The University of Sheffield).

2009-2016

Netherthorpe School, Chesterfield; Derbyshire.

3 A levels (including an A in Mathematics) at grade A-C.
13 GCSEs (or equiv.) at grade A*-C.

Teaching & Supervising

Teaching at the University of Sheffield (2021-present): I have taught as both lead and assistant demonstrator in seminars and computing labs at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. I have covered topics from coding in Python and R to probability, statistics, and data science.
UGRI supervisor (2022): I supervised an undergraduate student as part of the 'UGRI' scheme at the University of Sheffield. This four-week project covered the use of Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) for statistical inference on individual animal movement data.

Key Research Skills

Programming: I am proficient in R and Python. I have recently taught both coding languages to classes of undergraduates. I worked in Python for my Masters project and I currently work in R for my PhD.

Public speaking: I enjoy public speaking. I have received two prices for 'best talk' at conferences (detailed below).

Teamwork & Collaboration: I have worked on several organising committees for both conferences and seminar series (detailed below).

Voluntary Experience & Interests

PGR Seminar committee (2023-present): I help to organise monthly internal seminars for, by, and to PGR students on topics of their choice.
Organiser (2023) for the Sheffield RSC 2023. I was part of a team of four PGR conference organisers for the Sheffield Research Students Conference, 2023. My roles for this primarily involved (but were not limited to) logistics, social/networking events, and timetabling.
President (2022-2023) of the Sheffield SIAM/IMA Student Chapter. This involved organising and chairing monthly seminars, finding & hosting speakers, advertising, and logistics as part of a wider team.

Awards and Achievements

Invited Speaker (2023). I was invited to speak at the Royal Statistical Society Conference in Harrogate, 2023, on account of my 'best talk' prize at the Nottingham RSC.
Best talk (2023). I won 'best student talk' at the summer 2023 meeting of the National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE; Swansea, June 2023).
SIAM Student Chapter Certificate of Recognition (2023). This was awarded to me by the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) after having served as their Sheffield chapter president from 2022-2023.
Best talk (2022). I was awarded 'best talk' at the Nottingham RSC 2022.

Please feel free to contact me at dpdgrainger1[at]sheffield.ac.uk

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