School of Mathematics

Chris Dent

Laura O'Sullivan and Mira Rabbathave worked together to produce this article as part of our series of Academic Interviews; featuring Chris Dent!

Mathematics is involved in so many different aspects of our 21st Century lives: from the mathematics behind modern technologies; to statistical analysis, which helps drive government policy. It seems you can find a mathematician wherever you look!

 

Prof. Chris Dent has worked in many roles as a mathematician; his work includes assisting the National Grid, to working with the government on projects to support policy and decision-making. So, how did he get here?

 

Chris Dent describes himself as “quite an unusual person to be working in a school of maths” and he had quite a winding path to mathematics at Edinburgh. Beginning with a “fairly conventional” route: he did his A Levels in mathematics, followed by a mathematics degree at Cambridge, which involved large amounts of mathematical physics. Chris then diverted from his path and moved into a PhD and four years of postdoctoral research in Theoretical Physics. After this, wanting to leave academia; he did a Masters in Operational Research (ORMC) at the University of Edinburgh, intending to work in the financial sector. However, after completing his Masters, he saw interesting jobs in academia and ended up joining the Institute of Energy Systems. After this, he worked at the School of Engineering at Durham University before finally joining the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.

 

Prof. Dent works on the boundary between mathematical sciences and engineering.  When asked what that experience is like, he explained enthusiastically:

“I think, in a way, this is where the action is…on these boundaries between disciplines.”

He describes how there is huge amount of need for professional data science skills. One interesting example came from an interaction with the National Grid Control Room. “Historically” says Prof. Dent, “we’ve had a few hundred large entities directly interacting with the Control Room. However going from, say, a few hundred entities, to the system directly interacting with 20 million plus individuals and consumers, you can no longer do this by any kind of single big centralized optimization problem. You’ve got to find ways of dividing this up, which requires completely new versions of the mathematics of how you deal with energy systems.”

 

In terms of his current work, Prof. Dent is involved in a study focusing on the security of the national electricity supply, which he’s been a part of for around ten years. This is usually referred to in the media as the question of “Will the Lights Go Out”? In Prof. Dent’s eyes:

 “That’s quite an education on the relationship between a spicy political issue and the underpinning analysis behind it.”

He’s currently involved in two projects with the National Grid on control room algorithms, with another one on the horizon. Prof. Dent also runs a project with the Alan Turing Institute, where he is a fellow, which looks at issues of decision support in government policy and capital planning. In addition to all this, he’s been asked to run an internal project at the University on data driven innovations to support post-covid economic recovery and jobs.

 

Chris Dent also directs the statistics consultancy unit, which is itself connected to the Centre for Statistics. “We set up the unit to really allow us to get involved in a wider range of activities. It’s engaged in everything from teaching and continuing professional development courses to what you might call ‘conventional’ external consulting on a commercial basis. It’s also involved part time in other School’s research projects: there’s often a need, for instance, in medical science projects for professional statistical expertise, but not for a full-time statistician.”

 

Prof. Dent has recently written an article that on “improving Covid-19 data and evidence communication”. “I’d been following the way the data and modelling have been presented,” he begins, “but I hadn’t been thinking about this very actively until a series of famous or, one might say, infamous press briefings”. A moment that really got Chris thinking was when “Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty presented a ‘scenario’, not a ‘prediction’. That was quite shocking to me, to everybody who’s ever been involved in this kind of thing. Whenever we really thought about these things we realized that if you just put up one scenario, people are going to interpret it as a prediction.”

 

Chris believes it’s vital that in addition to “going through a PowerPoint presentation on television”, scientists should clearly communicate the underlying science:

“what’s missing is a report giving a full version of the interpretation and how people should regard this information – in other words what the more complete logic, that underpins the presentation, is. It’s becoming quite common to see, in place of a written report, a slide pack: what you then get is something that works really poorly as slides and doesn’t in any way replace the proper written report because it’s not as complete.”

Chris is “not entirely comfortable with his criticisms, due to the need to acknowledge the immense pressure under which the government’s scientific advisors are working on one of the greatest peacetime challenges the world has faced”. However “you can’t really reach a conclusion other than that a lot of the practice of communicating data evidence is just bad. It was pretty disappointing to see that good practice just not being done.” Another point he emphasized is that, despite his critical opinion, “There is a solution here. I do have suggestions as to how this could improve.”

 

It is quite interesting to see, not just the scope, but also the importance of Prof. Dent’s work. As he says in the interview, COVID-19 is one of the most challenging matters faced in peace time. Mathematicians have the ability to provide decision support to improve the effectiveness of the response. After the interview with Chris Dent, it seemed like the answer to what mathematicians work on is, to a certain extent, what they want to work on. Chances are, whatever the topic is, adding mathematics to it can make a significant difference!