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Staff Profile

Dr James Bentham

Reader in Statistics

Background

I am an applied statistician with a strong interest in health-related research. I was recently awarded EPSRC funding for the project "Bayesian Nonparametric Regression Models for Genetic Associations" and am also a co-investigator on the project "Easy ECG" in collaboration with Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Collaborators and I recently completed a Knowledge Transfer Partnership project funded by Innovate UK.

I joined Newcastle University as Reader in Statistics in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics in June 2024. This followed seven years as an academic in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science at the University of Kent.

My postdoctoral positions were at the School of Public Health at Imperial College London and the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics at King's College London. I studied for my doctorate at the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London under the supervision of Prof David Hand.

Selected publications:

  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults. Lancet, 403; 2024.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Diminishing benefits of urban living for children and adolescents' growth and development. Nature, 615; 2023.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Height and body-mass index trajectories of school-aged children and adolescents from 1985 to 2019 in 200 countries and territories: a pooled analysis of 2181 population-based studies with 65 million participants. Lancet, 396; 2020.
  • Bentham, J et al. Multidimensional characterization of global food supply from 1961 to 2013. Nature Food, 1; 2020.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Rising rural body-mass index is the main driver of the global obesity epidemic in adults. Nature, 569; 2019.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population-based measurement studies in 128·9 million children, adolescents, and adults. Lancet, 390; 2017.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in blood pressure from 1975 to 2015: a pooled analysis of 1479 population-based measurement studies with 19·1 million participants. Lancet, 389; 2017.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Worldwide trends in diabetes since 1980: a pooled analysis of 751 population-based studies with 4·4 million participants. Lancet, 387; 2016.
  • NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC). Trends in adult body-mass index in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014: a pooled analysis of 1698 population-based measurement studies with 19·2 million participants. Lancet, 387; 2016.
  • Bentham, J et al. Genetic association analyses implicate aberrant regulation of innate and adaptive immunity genes in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus. Nature Genetics, 47; 2015.
Research

My research has had three major strands:

  • I worked on a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of systemic lupus erythematosus. A key focus of my future research plans is to develop more effective statistical models for this type of data. This is the focus of my EPSRC-funded research.
  • I developed Bayesian hierarchical models for the Non-Communicable Disease Risk Factor Collaboration, as well as carrying out other statistical analyses of global health data.
  • I have applied natural language processing (NLP) methods to health-related data. This includes my doctoral research, which applied these methods to free-text data describing patient safety incidents that had occurred in the UK's National Health Service. I recently finished supervising the application of NLP methods to health-related data as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project.

This research has led to papers published in Nature, Nature Genetics, Nature Food, The Lancet, The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology, and The Lancet Global Health. I have worked with varied academic researchers on health-related data as well as collaborating with external organisations. I'm always keen to develop new collaborations so please get in touch.

For more details please see my ORCiD profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5733-9417.

Teaching

In 2024/25, I taught:

  • MAS3907 Big Data Analytics
  • MAS8501 Statistical Foundations of Business Analytics.

In 2025/26, I have taught:

  • MAS8600 Graduate Foundations of Statistics and Data Science.
  • MAS8504 Graduate Foundations of Statistics and Data Science (Theory & Methods).
  • MAS8505 Graduate Foundations of Statistics and Data Science (Applications).
  • MAS8407 Practical Statistics for Exploratory Data Analytics.
  • CSC8643 Data Management and Exploratory Data Analysis.

In 2026/27, I will be teaching:

  • MAS8600 Graduate Foundations of Statistics and Data Science.