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 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.
You get a lot of freedom to choose your research area...and there is a wide range of research areas within the department from which to choose
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
The SAMBa team understands how to efficiently bridge the gap between the abstract world of mathematics and statistics to industrial research
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
My experience in SAMBa shaped me as a versatile researcher with the ability to use maths to make an impact.
Being a part of SAMBa was a great way to broaden my research interests and to apply this knowledge to cross-displinary problems
SAMBa offers high level training in statistical and applied mathematical disciplines, as well as direct engagement with industrial partners
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
