PhD Spotlight Joanne Ellison is a Senior Research Assistant at the University of Southampton. She works within the CPC modelling strand, as well as on the project “Understanding recent fertility trends in the UK and improving methodologies for fertility forecasting” in the fertility and family strand. Joanne recently passed her PhD viva for her research on stochastic modelling and fertility forecasting. She is supervised by CPC members and associates, Professor Ann Berrington and Dr Erengul Dodd at the University of Southampton, and Professor Jon Forster at the University of Warwick. “I am a recent PhD student within the Statistics group in the Mathematics department at the University of Southampton. Since March, I have been working as a Senior Research Assistant in the Department of Social Statistics and Demography, working in the CPC modelling strand and on the FertilityTrends project. This is a joint project between the Universities of Southampton and St Andrews, looking at explaining and predicting changes in fertility patterns in the UK. My research interests are in demographic modelling and forecasting, with a particular focus on fertility. My PhD research involved developing Bayesian projection models for age-specific fertility rates that appropriately account for all sources of uncertainty, incorporate multiple data sources at different levels (such as survey data and vital statistics), and make use of state-ofthe-art computational methodology.
In my current postdoctoral role, I have been working with the CPC modelling team on developing a projection model for weekly mortality that incorporates annual trends - we are using the model to learn about excess mortality and to inform ONS, which is particularly important in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. I have also worked with the FertilityTrends team on a project exploring the potential impact of Covid-19 on fertility over the next few years, through hypothesising scenarios for the effect of the pandemic on childbearing at different ages. The resulting projections could have significant implications for the planning and future provision of childcare and maternity services, as well as school places. I am about to begin working on the fourth work package of the FertilityTrends project, developing fertility forecasting methodology that makes use of the findings of the other work packages to investigate the determinants of recent changes in UK fertility. Fertility projections are a key driver of population projections, which are vital for informing the work of government policymakers and planners. It is very exciting to be investigating ways in which we can obtain more reliable fertility forecasts, as this has the potential to improve decision-making at the highest level. Being affiliated with the CPC as a PhD student, and now working as part of the CPC research team as a staff member, has helped me in many ways. Practically, for example, through providing office space
and funding attendance at conferences. Academically, through attending and presenting at modelling strand meetings, and in this way learning and developing with the support and guidance of experts in demographic modelling; and also through the opportunities to broaden my knowledge at CPC seminars. Professionally, CPC membership has helped me build relationships with CPC members at the partner universities, and external organisations such as the Office for National Statistics. I am extremely grateful for CPC’s support, and the positive impact that being a member of the team has had on my development as an early career researcher.”
Further reading Forecasting of cohort fertility under a hierarchical Bayesian approach (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Statistics in Society, Series A) Recent trends in UK fertility and potential impacts of COVID-19 (CPC Working Paper 95)
PhD congratulations Congratulations to Lisa Davison, Joanne Ellison and Francesco Rampazzo who passed their PhD vivas. Lisa’s thesis involved quantitative, secondary data analysis of informal caregivers and loneliness in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). Lisa has recently joined Alison Bowes, Alasdair Rutherford and Alison Dawson on the Designing Homes for Healthy Cognitive Ageing (DesHCA) project at the University of Stirling.
Joanne’s PhD topic was stochastic modelling and forecasting of fertility rates. She has recently joined the CPC modelling strand and FertilityTrends project working with Ann Berrington, Jakub Bijak, and Hill Kulu.
Francesco’s work, entitled ‘Following a trail of breadcrumbs: A study of migration through digital traces’, explores the possibilities offered by digital demography. Francesco is now based at the Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative and Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science as a Career Development Fellow in Marketing and Consumer Demography.
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