Valerie Susan Isham (born 1947) is a British applied probabilist and former

President of the Royal Statistical Society The president of the Royal Statistical Society is the head of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), elected biennially by the Fellows of the Society. (The time-period between elections has varied in the past, and in fact elections only rarely occur ...

. Isham's research interests in include

point process In statistics and probability theory, a point process or point field is a collection of mathematical points randomly located on a mathematical space such as the real line or Euclidean space. Kallenberg, O. (1986). ''Random Measures'', 4th edition. ...

es, spatial processes, spatio-temporal processes and population processes.

Education and career

Isham went to

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

(

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

) where she was a student of statistician David Cox. She has been a professor of probability and

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

since 1992.

Book

Isham is the coauthor with Cox of the book ''

Point Processes Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

'' (Chapman & Hall, 1980).Reviews of ''Point Processes'': J. D. Biggins (1981), ''Math. Gaz.'', , ; D. J. Daley, ; Fergus Daly (1991), ''JRSSA'', , ; Paul T. Holmes (1983), ''JASA'', , ; David Vere-Jones (1982),

Recognition

Isham was the president of the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

for 2011–2012. She was awarded its

Guy Medal The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Silver and Bronze medals are awarded annually. The Gold Medal was awarded every three years between 1987 and 2011, but is awarded biennia ...

in Bronze in 1990. In 2018 she received the Forder Lectureship from the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...

and the

New Zealand Mathematical Society The New Zealand Mathematical Society is a New Zealand based learned society of mathematicians. It is listed by the Royal Society of New Zealand as the affiliate organisation responsible for mathematics research, and by the International Mathematical ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Isham, Valerie S. Probability theorists 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians British statisticians Women mathematicians Women statisticians 1947 births Living people Academics of University College London Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society