James Grant
jamesagrant.bsky.social
James Grant
@jamesagrant.bsky.social
Researcher in Statistics and AI | Specialisms: Reinforcement Learning, Bandits

Lecturer @ Lancaster University | he/him | πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ΄σ §σ ’σ ³σ £σ ΄σ Ώ | views own

Book nerd πŸ“š | Dog lover 🐢 | Inconsistent runner πŸƒ

https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/staff/grantj/
Pinned
Hi Bluesky πŸ¦‹ πŸ‘‹

I'm hoping to (re)connect with the Stats, ML/AI, and EDI in STEM/Academia communities here, so here's a cringey bio

I'm a Lecturer (Assist Prof) at Lancaster Uni, with a background in reinforcement learning theory, and interests in fairness & reliability in human-AI decision-making.
Reposted by James Grant
πŸš€ The RSS presents "Statistics for Every Body: Inclusive Data Communication" on Jan 28, 2026!
πŸ“Š Learn to make your data accessible for audiences with visual & auditory impairments with experts from BBC News, ONS & more.
πŸ”—Event details: bit.ly/Stats4Every1
#StatsSky #DataVis #RStats #InclusiveStats
December 19, 2025 at 11:31 AM
very cool!
December 2, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Oooh that's lovely, and makes me wonder how you could produce something showing the correlation with height above sea level πŸ€”πŸ˜Š
November 7, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Recharged after a much needed week of sun and rest β˜€οΈπŸ‡¬πŸ‡· Even managed to clear the email backlog in a morning. πŸ“€
July 9, 2025 at 1:52 PM
A great chat about all things LGBTQ+ & STEM is written up in this @lancasteruni.bsky.social blog - was really interesting to reflect on how LGBTQ+ identities have interacted with our careers, and the role of visibility and allyship in building inclusion further. www.lancaster.ac.uk/sci-tech/abo...
STEMMing the Leaky Pipeline: A β€œPride in Science” special - Lancaster University
As a part of Pride month, the Research and Engagement Team in the Faculty of Science and Technology interviewed LGBTQ+ members of research and academic staff from a range of departments to get their i...
www.lancaster.ac.uk
June 30, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Gutted to miss this one due to holidays, but strongly recommend to those able to get to it in Edinburgh and looking forward to reading the book @kevinguyan.bsky.social πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆ
We are delighted to organise this @kevinguyan.bsky.social talk in Edinburgh jointly with @rssedinburgh.bsky.social
➑️Rainbow Trap: How Inclusive Statistics Still Box Us In⬅️

πŸ“…7 July
πŸ“Œ @bayescentre.bsky.social
⏰6pm-7.30pm

🎫Book your place!
rss.org.uk/training-eve...
June 23, 2025 at 1:44 PM
New out on arXiv today: arxiv.org/abs/2506.16425

This paper on statistical properties of estimators in phylogenomics is the last from George's soon-to-be-submitted thesis. It was great to supervise as it was a wonderful example of the research being driven by George's curiosity and original ideas.
Covariance Decomposition for Distance Based Species Tree Estimation
In phylogenomics, species-tree methods must contend with two major sources of noise; stochastic gene-tree variation under the multispecies coalescent model (MSC) and finite-sequence substitutional noi...
arxiv.org
June 23, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by James Grant
Refuse to be invisible! πŸ³οΈβ€πŸŒˆπŸ³οΈβ€βš§οΈ

Now is the time to make our voices heard, sharing our experiences in the EHRC Consultation which affects LGBTQ+ people.

We've created a handy guide to help plan your response, get started now and share this post.

www.lgbt.foundation/EHRC
June 3, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Come back to me when the AI can fold the laundry πŸ˜…
June 5, 2025 at 10:15 AM
This BBC article does a better than average job of reporting the difficulties in measuring trends conditions like autism with highly variable diagnosis rates - kudos!: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Are there more autistic people now?
Why is the number of autism diagnoses changing? And what does it mean for autistic people?
www.bbc.co.uk
May 3, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Today is revision lecture day which means quadruple checking I go through the solutions to LAST year’s exam, not THIS year’s as I had a nightmare about last week πŸ˜‚
May 2, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by James Grant
I am so incredibly tired of this ongoing attack on trans people. Cis men are murdering women in plain sight. If gender-critical women turned their attention to dealing with men, women might be safe. I'm not worried about loos or changing rooms. I am worried about literally everything else.
April 16, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by James Grant
The core trilma here remains the same - the govt needs to accept one of three things: high student migration, higher domestic student fees (or higher taxes to fund universities) or university bankruptcies. Those are the only options, given where we are. Pick one.
The UK government is proposing to finally finish off its universities by further tightening the terms of the graduate visa route. The stupid fools. Playing with dangers they don't even understand. www.ft.com/content/f441...
UK Home Office’s reform of graduate visas runs into opposition
[FREE TO READ] Education department at odds with plan to curb number of overseas students allowed to stay in Britain
www.ft.com
April 8, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Reposted by James Grant
Today EPSRC has published an independent analysis of diversity data, by @royalstatsoc.bsky.social and input from the Alan Turing Institute.
The project investigates potential bias in the EPSRC peer review process using structured data analysis and textual analysis of reviewers’ comments and scores.
March 6, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Outside work I'm a big fan of books, coffee, dogs, running, and general nerdy/queer fun stuff πŸ˜€
March 1, 2025 at 10:51 AM
I'm a statistician by training and always interested in how data-driven models and systems can be explained clearly to the public.

I'm a small part of some great EDI initiatives at the Royal Statistical Society and at Lancaster and keen to share and learn from others' inclusion expertise here.
March 1, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Hi Bluesky πŸ¦‹ πŸ‘‹

I'm hoping to (re)connect with the Stats, ML/AI, and EDI in STEM/Academia communities here, so here's a cringey bio

I'm a Lecturer (Assist Prof) at Lancaster Uni, with a background in reinforcement learning theory, and interests in fairness & reliability in human-AI decision-making.
March 1, 2025 at 10:51 AM