Dr Paul Oman
Subject area: Mathematics and Statistics
Principal Lecturer
I studied maths at Newcastle University (1981-84) then left to work for British Aerospace as a Graduate Engineer down in Hatfield for about a year. I realised that I preferred working in universities so returned to Newcastle University as a Research Associate to write an epidemiology computer package (in APL) to simulate the incidence of bladder cancer in a workforce. I enjoyed the medical applications of statistics so embarked on a PhD in 1986 to research survival data models and was sponsored by the Northern Counties Kidney Research Fund to analyse the kidney transplant data for the local region.
I completed my PhD in 1989 and was lucky enough to be awarded a
postdoctoral Fellowship, again at Newcastle, to take my research further. I
ended this at the beginning of 1991 when I joined the School of Mathematics
at Newcastle Polytechnic as a Senior Lecturer. The School has evolved over
the years and in July 2000 I became Head of the Maths Division. After
holding this post for three years (and been a lecturer for 12 years), I
decided on a change of scenery and went on secondment as Project manager
for the Tyne and Wear New Technology Institute. This was part of a national
Government funded initiative to try and get computing expertise in the
universities more integrated with small to medium sized enterprises.
In 2005 we merged with the Tees Valley NTI to become the North East New
Technology Institute and I served as Project Director on this until the
project ended in 2008. I then returned to the maths and statistics division
and am now teaching both maths and statistics to our maths
undergraduates and some students from other Schools. Given the management
roles I have had over the last eight years, my research (which was mainly
in medical statistics) has fallen by the wayside but I am looking forward
to getting back into it in the near future.
Away from the university, I spend most of my spare time doing DIY,
particularly woodwork and watching my youngest son play
football.
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