Ralph Clarke

Prof Ralph Clark, Professor in Environmental Statistics

It’s fair to say Professor Clarke has a passion for numbers.

It’s fair to say Professor Clarke has a passion for numbers. He holds a first class Maths and Statistics bachelor’s degree from University of Reading and an Applied Statistics Master’s from University of Southampton. This, coupled with his passion for the environment, led Ralph to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) working as a statistician for NERC’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH). He is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of the International Biometrics Society.

Ralph joined BU in 2007 and his research is tackling some of the biggest pressing issues in the field: “The major concern facing our ever-growing world population and planet is to alleviate competing and often conflicting demands for limited resources, be it for land, food, water, energy or quality of life,” explains Ralph. “Our natural and man-made world is complexly inter-dependent, variable in space and time and thus difficult to understand and predict. Our environmental research inevitably involves the challenging use of statistical ideas and methods, which is the science of uncertainty.”

With an extensive range of contacts and collaborations, Ralph is the joint author of over 120 refereed scientific journal papers and over 100 externally-commissioned research reports. He has also been principal statistical advisor to the NERC national Countryside Surveys and has worked with the UK Environment Agencies

One highly accomplished piece of research that attracted the world’s attention is his collaboration with Professor Jeremy Thomas (Oxford University) on the return of the Large Blue Butterfly from threatened extinction. This was published in the high-profile journal Science

His work has taken him across continents, including a lucky experience of a month in post Cultural Revolution China, giving a UNESCO-funded statistics and computing course to 120 biologists. Experiences from developing a sampling and software system (RIVPACS) for monitoring  the biological quality of UK rivers led to Ralph advising on similar approaches in Australia and the USA and recent involvement in Europe-wide projects to develop monitoring tools to aid national agencies in implementing the European Union’s Water Framework Directive, which focuses on assessing and improving the quality of rivers, lakes and coastal waters.

Quite separately, Ralph’s collaborative research with local consultants, Natural England, RSPB and local planning authorities is developing predictive models for the impact of housing and increased recreational visitors on nearby heathland and other conservation sites and their protected wildlife .

Away from statistics, Ralph can be found on the football terraces at St. Mary’s. “My wife, three daughters and I are season ticket holders, watching the ups and downs of Southampton Football Club.” He also has another guise. “Every two years I have crazy fun in our village pantomimes, often playing the Dame.”