SAMBa provided a uniquely supportive yet challenging environment, in which one is encouraged to explore their interests and question their limits
Before joining SAMBa, I completed MMath at the University of St Andrews. My PhD was on “Competing Growth Processes with Applications to Networks” supervised by Dr Cécile Mailler and Professor Peter Mörters.
In my final year, I did a 3-months placement with HSBC, in their spot FX electronic market making team, who subsequently offered me a fulltime job. I am now working for HSBC as a quantitative analyst.
SAMBa made it possible for me to get a PhD in Mathematics, not only by funding my studies, but also by supporting me throughout and actively encouraging to pursue various opportunities which became available in the process.
The ITTs in particular, gave me first-hand experience in formulating industrial challenges as Mathematical problems, delivering the outcome in a clear manner to both technical and non-technical audiences. This skill undoubtedly helped me to do well in my placement.
SAMBa provided a uniquely supportive yet challenging environment, in which one is encouraged to explore their interests and question their limits. The first year of the programme encourages students to gain a wide range of technical skills highly valued by industry, as well as fostering many other transferable skills, such as presentation, team-working and grant proposal writing skills, thus making it a relatively smooth transition for students after their PhDs regardless of whether they decide to stay in academia or go into industry (with anything in between).
I found the one-on-one reading courses an incredible opportunity to both learn about a topic in detail, and to get to know a potential area and supervisor before starting my PhD
I enjoyed the big portfolio of opportunities I was given, which I believe is an essential property of SAMBa and something which truly makes the programme worth it
Shortly after joining SAMBa I broke my neck in a bicycle accident. But thanks to the support from the amazing team, I was still able to make a success of my PhD. The SAMBa environment surrounds you with wonderful people and fantastic opportunities.
I joined thinking I wanted to do one type of PhD but ended up doing a completely different one due to the flexibility that was provided in finding/forming a PhD during the masters year
SAMBa’s most remarkable feature is the variety of study options it offers
I had the opportunity to get involved in some international training and capacity building activities with international partners and was able to travel to Brazil and Mongolia to share my knowledge of statistical methods and applications, which was really rewarding.
Being a part of SAMBa was a great way to broaden my research interests and to apply this knowledge to cross-displinary problems
(My supervisors) encouraged me to take my own research direction, guided by my interests, and to be involved in the wider community, presenting at and attending a wide range of national and international conferences
I really valued the experience of being part of a cohort of students in SAMBa, which guaranteed that we were not doing our PhDs in isolation, despite working intensively on independent projects
SAMBa exposes students to a wide range of cutting edge statistical and mathematical research that will be useful to them in their PhD and later career
