Peter K Dunn

Biography

Associate Professor Peter Dunn has broad expertise in the application of statistics in a variety of fields, with publications in diverse areas that includes the teaching of statistics, health, ecology, climatology, agriculture and mathematical statistics.

Peter has a strong background in mathematical statistics, and especially generalized linear models. He has developed methods for accurate numerical evaluation of the densities of the Tweedie distributions, leading to a better understanding of these distributions. These methods are implemented in a unique package (called tweedie) available for the R statistical environment at CRAN. He has presented numerous conference papers (winning a prize at the 16th International Workshop on Statistical Modelling in Odense, Denmark; and the EJ Pitman Prize at the Australian Statistics Conference in 2002).

Peter is the co-author (with Professor Gordon Smyth) of Generalized Linear Models With Examples in R, and co-developed the Dunn-Smyth (quantile) residuals used in statistical modelling. He has been invited to give presentations on the R statistical environment at conferences and workshops (including the Australian Statistics Conference).

Before completing his PhD in mathematical statistics at the University of Queensland, Peter worked at the Agricultural Production Systems Research Unit (APSRU) in the Queensland Department of Primary Industries as a climate scientist. He has also lectured statistics and mathematics in the Department of Mathematics and Computing at the University of Southern Queensland, and joined USC in late 2008.

Teaching areas

• Epidemiology and Biostatistics
• Scientific Research Methods

Awards

Peter was awarded a national Office of Learning and Teaching Citation in 2012, for bringing statistics to life for students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, using real data, engaging activities and rapport to build confidence, enthusiasm and success. He is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Mathematics Education in Science and Technology.

Memberships

• The Statistical Society of Australia Inc. (SSAI)
• The Mathematics Education Research Group of Australasia (MERGA)
• The Australian Mathematics Society (AMS)
• The USC Correspondent for the AMS.

Expert media commentary

Dr Dunn's specialist areas of knowledge include epidemiology and biostatistics, scientific research methods, power variance generalised linear models, statistical applications, teaching of mathematics and statistics.