Ian Gordon
- Professor Ian Gordon
irg@unimelb.edu.au
(03) 8344 7993
Consulting
My main responsibility is as Director of the Statistical Consulting Centre. I have 30 years of experience in applied statistical work, and a particular interest in communicating statistical ideas effectively in all I do. I am particularly interested in problem-solving from a statistical perspective. The work which has interested me most has involved a puzzle in some way: why are the data like this? I am also very interested in the use of statistical methods to promote health and well-being in society, and to promote justice. So there has been an emphasis in my consulting on medical and epidemiological research, and, in my expert witness work, on cases where disadvantaged or vulnerable people were seeking justice. I have written over 200 consulting reports for projects of all sizes, and for clients from business, industry and government. I have acted as an expert witness in many court cases in a variety of jurisdictions. I have a Bachelor of Science (Honours), Master of Science, and a PhD, all in mathematical statistics.
I am the President of the Statistical Society of Australia.
I am an Accredited Statistician (AStat) with the Statistical Society of Australia and a member of the Australasian Epidemiological Association.
Expert witness work
Since 1988 I have acted as an expert witness in proceedings on a large variety of matters and in several jurisdictions. In 2014 I appeared in the Federal Court to give evidence regarding estimates of the number of breaches of the Credit Act, in a Proceeding brought by ASIC against The Cash Store, a short-term lender. The judgment imposed a penalty of $19M against the defendant; see paragraphs 9 and 10 for the reliance placed on my evidence. I provided evidence in The “Safety Net Review, 2003” case. A search on my name, “Gordon”, indicates the reliance the Tribunal placed on my evidence. Note paragraph 131 in particular. I was engaged by Arnold Bloch Leibler to assist them with an application by young African men against Victoria Police, involving allegations of racial discrimination and racial profiling. The case was settled after the proceedings commenced. See here for a relevant Age editorial. See here for more information about my experience as an expert witness.
Research
I am a Professor of Statistics in the School of Mathematics and Statistics. I have been a Chief Investigator on nationally competitive grants (ARC Discovery, ARC Linkage and NHRMC). I have supervised or co-supervised five PhD students to completion. My refereed publications have a total of over 3000 citations and my current h-index is 31 (this means that 31 of my publications have 31 or more citations). My methodological research has been mainly in sample size and meta-analysis; my collaborative research has been in many fields, including cardiac surgery, cancer, cardiovascular research, dentistry, geomatics and social and occupational epidemiology.
Teaching
I have taught courses in statistics from first year to Masters level. I am the lecturer for the Masters course The practice of statistics (MAST90027), in which mainstream statistics Masters students learn about the real application of statistics in practice. This subject is directly informed by my own experience in the SCC. Each year I co-teach intensive short courses open to anyone. Statistics for Research Workers – using R (in February) . I co-teach (with Sue Finch) an introductory statistical methods course for post-graduate students at the University of Melbourne; this is also called Statistics for research workers. The course code is MAST90007. I collaborated on the development of two innovative courses in statistical literacy at the University of Melbourne. Critical thinking with data is a University of Melbourne breadth subject available to all first years. It teaches students to become critical users of data-based evidence. You can find out more here. Thinking Scientifically is a new online breadth subject for second year science students, which includes a substantial component about Thinking with data.