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 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
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
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.
I can't imagine studying for my PhD anywhere other than SAMBa
SAMBa’s most remarkable feature is the variety of study options it offers
The ITTs were invaluable in providing experience in collaborating effectively with others on large projects, understanding and synthesising new information quickly, and liasing with academic leads and commercial partners
The SAMBa team understands how to efficiently bridge the gap between the abstract world of mathematics and statistics to industrial research
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
My experience in SAMBa shaped me as a versatile researcher with the ability to use maths to make an impact.
(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
