Paul Smith joined Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) and the Dept of Social Statistics & Demography in September 2014 and is now Professor of Official Statistics, with a particular interest in sampling, estimation and other statistical methods applied to government statistics. He was appointed as Director of S3RI from the beginning of 2021.

Paul has strong links with the Office for National Statistics, and manages a long-running contract for methodological support with them. He also collaborates with other national statistical offices and government departments, in both research and substantive applications of statistics. Experience from these contacts provide real-world examples which are used in teaching, particularly on the MSc in Data Analytics for Government.