After received a BA in Mathematics from The Queen's College, Oxford, and an MSc in Biometry from the University of Reading, David was recruited to the AFRC Unit of Statistics in 1984. In 1987, AFRCUS merged with statisticians at the Scottish Agricultural Research Institutes to form Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS, initially called Scottish Agricultural Statistics Service, hosted by the Scottish Crop Research Institute and subsequently by the James Hutton Institute). David has remained with BioSS, undertaking a variety of roles throughout a career devoted to the development and application of quantitative methodologies in agri-environment research.
David's particular research expertise is in the analysis and modelling of correlated data in both frequentist (Residual Maximum Likelihood) and Bayesian (Markov chain Monte Carlo) frameworks. During his career, David collaborated widely across scientific institutions and disciplines, with a particular focus on ecology. By the time of his retirement in 2018 as Director of BioSS he had a scientific output of over 140 papers in refereed scientific journals and was Honorary Professor at University of Aberdeen, University of St Andrews and University of Edinburgh.
