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{{short description|British mathematician}}
{{short description|British mathematician}}
{{COI|date=September 2023}}
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Revision as of 12:50, 19 September 2023

Richard David Gill
CitizenshipBritish
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge
Free University of Amsterdam (PhD)
Scientific career
InstitutionsUtrecht University
Leiden University
Doctoral studentsSara van de Geer, Mark van der Laan

Richard David Gill (born 1951)[1] is a British-Dutch mathematician. From 1974 until his retirement in 2007, he held academic positions in the Netherlands, most recently as the chair of mathematical statistics at Leiden University. As a probability theorist and statistician, Gill is best known for his research on counting processes and survival analysis, some of which has appeared in an advanced textbook. He is also known for his pro bono consulting and advocacy on behalf of victims of incompetent statistical testimony, including a Dutch nurse who was wrongfully convicted and jailed for six years.

Biography

He studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge (1970–1973), and subsequently followed the Diploma of Statistics course there (1973–1974).[1]

Marrying a Dutch woman, he moved to the Netherlands where he worked from 1974 to 1988 at the Mathematical Centre (later renamed Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, or CWI) of Amsterdam. In 1979, Gill obtained his PhD with the thesis Censoring and Stochastic Integrals,[1] which was supervised by Jacobus Oosterhoff of the Vrije Universiteit, which awarded the doctorate.[2] Gill spent Autumn 1980 at the Statistical Research Unit at the University of Copenhagen. Gill continued to collaborate with Danish (and Norwegian) statisticians for ten years, helping to write the book Statistical models based on counting processes, which is often referred to as "ABGK" (for the authors Andersen, Borgan, Gill, and Keiding).[3] In 1983 he became the head of the Department of Mathematical Statistics at CWI.

In 1988 he moved to the Department of Mathematics of Utrecht University, where he held the chair in mathematical stochastics; this chair represented the three mathematical sciences of mathematical statistics, probability theory, and operations research. His PhD students include Sara van de Geer and Mark van der Laan.[2]

In 2006, he moved to the Department of Mathematics at Leiden University, where he held the chair of mathematical statistics. Since then, he has conducted statistical research in the theory of quantum information, forensic statistics, scientific integrity and in biostatistics. He has also worked on survival analysis, semiparametric models, causality, missing data, machine learning, and statistics in image analysis. Gill also publishes on the foundations of several mathematical sciences: the foundations of statistics, of probability, of mathematics, and of quantum physics. He reached the mandatory retirement age in 2017, and continues with research and consultancy.

Gill became a citizen of the Netherlands in 1996.[1]

Statistical advocacy against alleged wrongful convictions

In recent years he has lobbied for retrials for nurses who have been convicted of crimes on statistical evidence, including Lucia de Berk, Benjamin Geen,[4] Daniela Poggiali and Kevin Sweeney.

His efforts played a role in securing Poggiali's acquittal on murder charges in Italy in 2021.[4] De Berk was sentenced in the Netherlands to life imprisonment, after a legal psychologist gave testimony that there was great likelihood that de Berk committed a string of murders.[5] Gill and other professional statisticians showed this statistical testimony to be fallacious.[5] Continued scrutiny further invalidated the testimony by showing that the data had been collected to support the conviction of de Berk.[6][7][8] After a campaign in which Gill helped, a retrial was ordered and de Berk was found not guilty; she received a public apology from the Dutch government and financial compensation for her six years of incarceration.[9][10]

Geen's applications for a retrial have been rejected.[4][11] Since the murder conviction and whole life sentence of Lucy Letby in August 2023, Gill has questioned the statistical and scientific evidence in her case, stating, on his personal website: "As a scientist, I am saying that this case is a major miscarriage of justice. Lucy did not have a fair trial. The similarities with the famous case of Lucia de Berk in the Netherlands are deeply disturbing."[12][13]

Honours

Richard Gill is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[14] He is a past president of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, which publishes the journal Statistica Neerlandica.[15] Gill was selected as the 2010–2011 Distinguished Lorentz Fellow by the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences.[16][17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Short biography: Richard D. Gill". Leiden University. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b Richard David Gill at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ Andersen, Per Kragh; Borgan, Ørnulf; Gill, Richard D.; Keiding, Niels (1993). Statistical models based on counting processes. Springer series in statistics. New York: Springer-Verlag. pp. xii+767. ISBN 978-0-387-97872-7. MR 1198884.
  4. ^ a b c O'Grady, Cathleen (19 January 2023). "Unlucky numbers: Richard Gill is fighting the shoddy statistics that put nurses in prison for serial murder". Science. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
  5. ^ a b Hawkes, Nigel (10 April 2010). "Did statistics damn Lucia de Berk?: Behind the numbers". The Independent.
  6. ^ Buchanan, Mark (18 January 2007). "Statistics: conviction by numbers" (PDF). Nature. 445 (7125): 254–255. Bibcode:2007Natur.445..254B. doi:10.1038/445254a. PMID 17230166. S2CID 4419275.
  7. ^ "Persbericht CWI: Hirsch Ballin en Albayrak nemen petitie aan in zaak Lucia de B." [CWI Press Release: Hirsch Ballin and Albayrak accept petition in case of Lucia de B.] (in Dutch). Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica – Amsterdam. 1 November 2007. Archived from the original on 8 April 2008.
  8. ^ "Deskundige Over Belangrijkste Bewijs In Zaak Lucia De B.: 'Deze Baby Is Niet Vergiftigd'" [Expert on the most important proof in the Lucia de B. case: 'This baby has not been poisoned']. NOVA (in Dutch). 29 September 2007. Archived from the original on 4 October 2008.
  9. ^ "Nurse Lucia de Berk finally found not guilty of murdering seven patients". 14 April 2010. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011.
  10. ^ "Apology for nurse jailed for murdering seven patients", AP, The Independent 14 April 2010.
  11. ^ "Statisticians question evidence used to convict nurse of murdering patients". The Guardian. 15 February 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
  12. ^ "The Lucy Letby case". Richard Gill Statistics. 24 May 2023. Archived from the original on 1 September 2023. Retrieved 1 September 2023.
  13. ^ Steafel, Eleanor (24 August 2023). "How internet sleuths are already trying to prove Lucy Letby innocent". The Telegraph. Retrieved 26 August 2023.
  14. ^ "Richard Gill" (in Dutch). Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 15 July 2015. Retrieved 15 July 2015.
  15. ^ Board Archived 13 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research. Accessed 23 January 2010
  16. ^ Distinguished Lorentz Fellow, Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study.
  17. ^ Richard Gill Distinguished Lorentz Fellow 2010–2011, News release, Leiden University. Accessed 23 January 2010.
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