About
I’m a biostatistician. From October 2026 I’m a PhD student at the MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge, supervised by Professor Sofia Villar and funded by an MRC Trials Methodology Research Partnership studentship. My research is on response-adaptive designs for clinical trials: how to let a trial learn from its own data and send more participants to the treatments that are working, without breaking either the statistics or the logistics that keep a trial running.
I came to this by way of applied mathematics, then biostatistics at Pretoria and Stellenbosch, and then a clinical research organisation, where I went from intern to lead statistician on regulatory bioequivalence submissions. That work showed me how often a theoretically optimal design founders on delayed outcomes, randomisation systems, or recruitment realities. I care most about trials in resource-constrained settings, where efficiency gains matter most.
Before the PhD
I taught mathematics before any of this, at a high school and as a university teaching assistant, and I still enjoy explaining hard ideas clearly. My MSc thesis compared Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with Metropolis–Hastings sampling for Bayesian survival analysis of weighted, interval-censored HIV survey data, and I presented that work at the South African Statistical Association’s annual conference.
Away from statistics I am known for a steady supply of interesting facts and a love of aviation and geopolitical history. Some of that will end up on the blog.
Working with me
If you are a researcher looking for statistical help with a study, see the consulting pages. The full record of degrees, roles, and talks is on the CV page.