Geoff Nicholls

Geoff Nicholls is an Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Oxford, affiliated with St Peter's College as a Fellow and Tutor. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics from the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) and a PhD in High-Energy Physics from the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on Bayesian inference, computational statistics, and Monte Carlo methods applied to interdisciplinary problems in geoscience, linguistics, genetics, and archaeology. Notable contributions include semi-modular Bayesian inference frameworks and embedded diachronic sense change models for ancient languages. He has advised students like Lorenzo Pacchiardi and Jessie Jiang, and collaborates on tools like the TraitLab package for binary tree-like data analysis.

Key research areas include statistical methods for partial orders, biclustering forensic data, and scalable Bayesian techniques for high-dimensional problems. His work bridges theoretical developments with practical applications, such as modeling historical power dynamics using 12th-century documents and analyzing linguistic evolution in ancient Greek texts.