Norman Fenton

Education

Fenton was a student at Ilford County High School for Boys (1967-1974) and studied mathematics at the London School of Economics (1975–78) gaining a first class Bachelor of Science degree and also winning the ‘School Scholar’ prize in 1976 and 1977. He gained his Master of Science at the University of Sheffield (1978) winning the “ATM Flett Prize”, and Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield (1981) under the supervision of Peter Vamos. His thesis was on “Representations of Matroids”. In 2007-2008 Fenton completed a course in Expert Witness Training with Bond Solon under the auspices of Cardiff University Law Dept.

Career

Between leaving School and going to University Fenton worked for Hedge and Butler Wine Merchants (1974-1975) and also worked there in subsequent summers (1976 and 1977). After his PhD in 1981 Fenton joined University College Dublin (Mathematics Department) as Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. From 1982-84 he was a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at Oxford University (Mathematics Institute), and also member of Wolfson College. In 1984 he joined South Bank University (Dept Electrical & Electronic Eng) first as Senior Lecturer and then Reader. He set up and was Director of the Centre for Software & Systems Engineering before leaving in 1989 to join City University (Centre for Software Reliability). In 1993 Fenton was appointed Professor at City University (aged 34). In 1989 Fenton, along with Martin Neil and Ed Tranham, set up the company Agena Ltd in Cambridge. Fenton was CEO between 1998 and 2015 and remains a Director. In 2000 Fenton joined Queen Mary University of London (School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science) as Professor (part-time) and he has been there since. He is Director of the Risk and Information Management Research Group. In 2015 Fenton formed a new company Aldgate Analytics Ltd where he is CEO.

Research

Fenton currently works on quantitative risk assessment. This typically involves analysing and predicting the probabilities of unknown events using Bayesian statistical methods including especially causal, probabilistic models (Bayesian networks). This type of reasoning enables improved assessment by taking account of both statistical data and also expert judgment. In April 2014 Fenton was awarded one of the prestigious European Research Council Advanced Grants to focus on these issues. Fenton's experience in risk assessment covers a wide range of application domains such as legal reasoning (he has been an expert witness in major criminal and civil cases), medical analytics, vehicle reliability, embedded software, transport systems, financial services, and football prediction. Fenton has a special interest in raising public awareness of the importance of probability theory and Bayesian reasoning in everyday life (including how to present such reasoning in simple lay terms) and he maintains a website dedicated to this and also a blog focusing on probability and the law. In March 2015 Norman presented the BBC documentary Climate Change by Numbers. Fenton has published 7 books and 230 referred articles and has provided consulting to many major companies world-wide. His 2012 book was the first to bring Bayesian networks to a general audience. Fenton's current projects are focused on using Bayesian methods for improved legal reasoning and improved medical decision making. Since June 2011 he has led an international consortium (Bayes and the Law) of statisticians, lawyers and forensic scientists working to improve the use of statistics in court. In 2016, he is leading a prestigious 6-month Programme on Probability and Statistics in Forensic Science at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge. In addition to his research on risk assessment, Fenton is renowned for his work in software engineering (including pioneering work on software metrics); the third edition of his book “Software Metrics: A Rigorous and Practical Approach” was published in November 2014. The book is one of the most cited in software engineering (5040 citations, Google Scholar, Feb 2016).

Honours