Professor Nikos Tzavidis PhD
Head of School - Social Sciences, Professor of Statistical Methodology
Professor Nikos Tzavidis is Head of Department of Social Statistics & Demography within Social Sciences: Social Statistics & Demography at the University of Southampton.
I am a Professor of Statistical Methodology and Head of the Department of Social Statistics and Demography. My interest in Official and Survey statistics started when I joined Eurostat‘s Research and Development Unit after completing my MSc in Statistics. Since completing my PhD in Statistics I held posts at the Institute of Education, University of London and at the University of Manchester. My research expertise lies in the theory and applications of small area estimation. I further research topics in M-quantile and quantile regression, robust estimation for random effects models and in the analysis of complex survey, in particular multilevel and longitudinal, data.
My research is supported by the European Union's 7th Framework Programme, the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK. I am the PI for the University of Southampton on the Small Area Methods for Poverty and Living Conditions Estimates (SAMPLE) and on the Inclusive Growth Infrastructure Diffusion (InGrid) projects both funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme. I have been also extensively involved in consultancy work for National Statistical Institutes and Government Departments in the UK (Office for National Statistics), Europe (Central Bureau of Statistics, Netherlands) and overseas (National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy, Mexico).
I am involved in delivering training courses. I teach postgraduate training courses in small area estimation, survey sampling, quantile and robust regression methods, generalised linear models, multilevel models and longitudinal data analysis. Recent invitations for delivering training courses include the National Statistics Office of Brazil (IBGE), the Australian Bureau of Statistics, (ABS), the National Statistics conference in Bogota, Colombia, the Free University Berlin, the National Statistics Institute for Applied Statistics, University of Woolongong (Australia) and the UK Office for National Statistics. In 2013 I was awarded a Vice-Chancellor Teaching Award for services to teaching statistics.
I contribute part of my time for services to the statistics community. I am a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, elected member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) council member of the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS) and Associate Editor for the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, the Journal of Official Statistics and the International Statistical Review. I currently serve as an academic assessor for the UK Government Statistical Service Fast Stream Scheme and as the external examiner for the MSc in Social Research Methods and Statistics at the University of Manchester.