Our enthusiastic team of STOR-i students have joined us from a variety of locations and academic backgrounds. All of our students have a commitment to playing an active role in the dynamic learning environment in the STOR-i CDT. Here you can find information about current STOR-i students including their academic background and research interests.
In 2024, I completed my Master’s in Mathematics here at Lancaster University. Throughout my undergrad, I knew my goal was to continue pursuing research but was unsure of the areas in which I wanted to study. This is when I heard about STOR-i, and the range of research available within the areas of statistics and operational research. Having briefly come across OR in my undergrad, the opportunity to see more of the real-life problems that research can help solve is fascinating to me.
STOR-i’s emphasis on group work and communication was also a huge factor in my choosing to continue my academic journey with STOR-i. Having already studied at Lancaster, I know the great community ethos created within the university, and I am looking forward to working with people from many different academic backgrounds over my MRes year.
I completed an undergraduate degree in Actuarial Science, where I first discovered my passion for statistics. This led me to pursue a postgraduate degree in Mathematical Statistics, followed by a Master’s degree in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. During my studies, I worked part-time in the healthcare and biology sectors, applying statistical and machine learning techniques to various problems within these fields. Upon completion of my Masters degree, I worked at an AI consultancy based in Amsterdam.
The decision to join STOR-i was driven by my desire to refocus on my passion for statistics, while still leveraging my background in machine learning and industry experience. STOR-i also appealed to me because the MRes year provides the opportunity to explore different areas within statistics and operations research, while also engaging with leading professors, to help define my focus for the PhD phase of the programme.
I graduated from Lancaster University in 2024 when I completed my MSci in Mathematics. Despite starting the course with a strong interest in pure maths, I became more interested in statistics as I considered their usage in solving real-world problems. I particularly enjoyed my modules on extreme value theory and likelihood inference, and I look forward to exploring them further.Joining STOR-i is also an exciting chance to return to operations research after taking modules of it in my first year. The collaborative working environment, the variety of topics and the training opportunities at during the MRes year at STOR-i will help me further develop my skills and research interests before starting on my PhD.
In 2024, I completed my integrated master's in physics at the University of Oxford, where I specialised in theoretical physics and computational atmospheric physics. I joined STOR-i because I saw a PhD in statistics as a logical next step to build on my ability to solve interesting problems in physical systems. I hope to take on a PhD project where I am able to leverage my knowledge of physics to answer deeper questions than one can answer with purely analytical methods.
Outside of my degree I enjoy keeping active through sports like cycling and bouldering, and I am also proud to say I am STOR-i Footballs newest (and least talented) member.
I graduated with a Masters of Mathematics in 2023 from Durham University, where I focused on pure maths and mathematical physics. After my degree, I worked for a year as a Business Analyst for an insurance software company, using SQL to work with large databases.
However, I wanted to continue my education and explore new branches of mathematics. Statistics and operations research interested me due to their real-life applications, and the connections with industry at STOR-i particularly appealed to me. I also liked STOR-i’s focus on collaboration and outreach opportunities; during my degree, I worked for several programme designed at increasing participation in mathematics.
Outside of maths, I enjoy playing chess, reading all genres of books, and cooking.
My interest within the field of statistics and operational research stemmed from my undergraduate studies at the University of Glasgow, where I graduated in 2024 with a BSc in Economics and Statistics. During my time there, I became very interested in the capabilities of probabilistic modelling of simple, realistic and explainable scenarios. This interest motivated me to pursue the STOR-i internship after my final year of studies, where I had the opportunity to explore the applications of probabilistic modeling, particularly within queueing systems.
Following the internship, I decided to continue STOR-i due to its strong emphasis on research with real world applications, as well as the department's emphasis in the community, whether that would be collaborative tasks or community-run events.
I am a mature student studying for an MRes and PhD with STOR-i. I studied Mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of York, graduating with an MMath. After my degree, I knew I wanted to make a positive difference and so I trained as a Mathematics teacher and ended up working in a challenging and diverse part of East Manchester. I developed an interest in Statistics through teaching Core Maths and A-level Statistics, and unlocked the side-quest of studying for an MSc in Statistics on a part-time basis at the University of Sheffield whilst working full-time as a teacher. I completed the side-quest, graduating in January 2024. I chose the programme at STOR-i because of the support to make an informed decision and plan before embarking on the PhD project. Most recently before joining STOR-i, I was a tutor at Manchester Metropolitan University.
My start in STOR-i coincided with my fifth year in Lancaster - I started on a Bachelor's in maths, and quickly changed onto an Integrated Master's in financial maths. This has now turned into what will become eight years at the university as I continue my academic journey in Lancaster.
Choosing to join STOR-i was an obvious decision for me: Between a fulfilling and interesting course; a range of hobbies from bouldering to ale society; and many friends I have made along the way, I loved my life in Lancaster. Despite these, the main reason I joined was, of course, the programme itself. Hardly anywhere else can a course be found that offers such a range of PhD options in Statistics and OR, and with a cohort or like-minded individuals and full-funding, it was hard to consider any other options once I had found it.
Originally from Bangalore, India, I lived in Scotland from 2020-2024 where I completed an Integrated Master's (MMath) in Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. I have always enjoyed applying Mathematical concepts to real-world problems. For my degree, I took courses mainly in statistics and operational research (OR). These courses provided exciting opportunities to apply maths to real-world problems such as University Course Timetabling, predicting risk factors for dementia and obesity, predicting hotel cancellations, energy supply modelling, etc. In my final year, I completed my dissertation in Mathematical Optimization for the Nurse Rostering Problem when I discovered my deep interest in OR and research. This motivated me to consider pursuing a PhD in Operational Research and STOR-i was the perfect fit for me!
The pathway of an MRes followed by the PhD at STOR-i offers a smooth transition from a taught Bachelor's/Master's to a PhD allowing me to gain formal research skills. With the extensive range of options for PhD projects in both Statistics and Operational research at STOR-i which allow you to work with industrial partners too, STOR-i was the perfect next step in my academic journey!
When I’m not doing maths, I enjoy music, hiking, long walks, repurposing waste into DIY crafts, and, more recently, bouldering!
In 2024 I graduated from Durham University with a MSci in Mathematics and Computer Science. During my undergraduate degree I became particularly interested in statistics, especially in its real life applications and how coding and simulation can be used to improve statistical models. In the summer after my second year I took part in the STOR-i internship where I investigated how surrogate functions can be used to improve Bayesian optimisation. The internship gave me the opportunity to get a taste of many topics in Statistics and OR which I had not previously encountered, and it also gave me a taste of what doing a PhD here would be like.
I decided to join STOR-I because of its focuses on problem solving and group collaboration, and I am also looking forward to getting opportunities to experience a wide range of areas in statistics and OR before choosing what the focus of my PhD will be.
I was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and grew up in the delta of different cultures and unique customs. As a part of my culture and daily life, pursue versatility. I have found this naturally in math.Consequently, I did a five-year BSc in Mathematics at the University of Guanajuato. At the end of my bachelor’s journey, I realized that Probability and Statistics combine the beauty of two worlds: theoretical aspects and real-life problem-solving. Then, I did an MSc in Probability and Statistics at the Research Center of Mathematics in Mexico. I contributed with novel works in Statistics and did a master thesis on new methodologies in Functional Time Series.
I joined STOR-i because I wanted to be part of the broad background community and teamwork philosophy, in addition to the possibility of exploring current research topics in Statistics and diving into world lead Operational Research. I enjoy practicing and watching several sports as part of my daily work. I also like to play the piano and read novels. Moreover, I enjoy customizing my computer’s workspace with new tools and designs.
I did my undergrad in Physics at the University of Delhi (finishing in 2022) and then switched to pure math for my MSc at IIT Jodhpur. The change felt right because I wanted to better understand the science I’d studied in my BSc and do more formal math. During my MSc, I took my first real course in Statistics, and it was a bit of a shock—realising that something as arbitrary and inanimate as data could drive a field as beautifully scientific and mathematical.
I wanted to know where Stat sits today and looked for work where I could apply/refine statistical tools in modern problems. This led to working on projects using statistical methods in nuclear physics and PDEs (with DU and REYES, Berkeley), some package development (in Rcpp/Julia) and writing my MSc dissertation in the intersection of representation theory and statistics.
I enjoyed all of it. It made me realize being a scientist in the modern, data-driven world perhaps also meant being a well-trained statistician. I found out about STOR-i in the last semester of my MSc and felt it had everything I was looking for in a PhD in statistics, and more. I’m excited for all the problems ahead!
Outside of academics, I like literature, philosophy, cinema and history—especially experimental stuff (in lit and cinema, not history).
In 2024, I graduated from Durham University with a Masters in Mathematics, having written my dissertation on Natural Language Processing. In the third year of my degree, having previously focused on pure mathematics, I began to be curious about statistics due to its applications in solving real world problems. This led me to completing the STOR-i Summer Internship, during which I completed a project on clustering neural spike train data in the spectral domain.
The internship deepened my interest in statistics, and I was drawn to the emphasis STOR-i puts on collaboration, both between students and with industrial partners. In the MRes course, I am excited to begin exploring my interest in Operations Research, developing my research skills with the topic sprints, and gaining industry insight on the problem solving days.
Outside of work, I enjoy reading, baking, and crocheting.
Despite being born and raised until adulthood in Romania, I completed an integrated Master’s in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Oxford in 2024. During that time, I took a strong interest in probability, with my final year project relying on martingales and measure theory to create new methods relevant in the formal verification of stochastic systems. However, I wasn't particularly attracted to statistics until I applied (unsuccessfully) to a statistical research consultancy in Exeter; the interview process and the overall experience convinced me that statistics is a field worth pursuing, whether via a research PhD or in a different way.
Thus, I found out about the STOR-i studentship from my university’s Careers Service while searching for graduate jobs. Upon applying, I was impressed by several benefits that the programme is able to offer. Firstly, I felt excited to take on the challenge of exploring areas such as statistics and operational research which I covered in little detail in my previous studies. Secondly, I was intrigued by the strong emphasis on collaboration, teamwork and community spirit, values that are reinforced and encouraged throughout the studentship. Last, but certainly not least, was the possibility to engage and collaborate directly with industrial partners. Overall, STOR-i seemed like a paradigm shift compared to my previous academic experiences, and I strongly felt that joining the programme would be the best choice for my own personal and professional growth.
In my free time, I enjoy playing and watching football – especially when Liverpool is on! -, reading books on Greek mythology and crime novels, as well as keeping up with various sci-fi and action TV shows.
