Diwei is currently the Associate Pro Vice Chancellor for Sport, Health and Wellbeing at Loughborough University and, also a Professor in Statistics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. Before these roles, she was a Senior Lecturer in Statistics, following her earlier positions as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the University of Brighton and the University of Wolverhampton, respectively. Her academic career began with a PhD at the University of Nottingham, funded by a Marie Curie research fellowship, from 2006 to 2010.
Diwei is an applied statistician specialising in developing statistical methods to analyse real-world data from various fields. She focuses on improving statistical shape and image analysis methods, playing a significant role in advancing the analysis of biomedical images. This includes MRI, X-ray, and ultrasound imaging, with a particular focus on applications in brain, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal research. Her research expertise also lies in the enhancement of statistical analytics within engineering data, especially in areas like automotive, chemical engineering and transport.
Diwei has attracted substantial funding for a variety of research and innovation initiatives, working alongside industry partners from numerous sectors and scales. Her proficiency has been broadly recognised, notably with her appointment as Knowledge Exchange Super Champion at the KE Hub for Mathematical Sciences at the Isaac Newton Institute. Furthermore, she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel at the Newton Gateway to Mathematics. In recognition of her significant contributions, she was awarded the distinguished Knowledge Exchange Catalyst fellowship by the International Centre of Mathematical Sciences (ICMS) in 2023. Diwei also played a leadership role as the Chair of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) East Midlands Group between 2019 and 2020. Additionally, since 2019, she has served as a specialist for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in the UK.
Diwei has consistently demonstrated her expertise in applied statistics and data science, securing substantial grants for multiple collaborative R&I projects. Her research areas include statistical modelling and uncertainty quantification for data-driven problems, statistical image and shape analysis (e.g., Diffusion MRI for brains, cardiac, and muscles), Bayesian statistics, and medical statistics. These projects span diverse fields such as medical image analysis, large-scale autonomous engineering data analytics, statistical modelling for traffic data, and financial modelling.
In 2023, Diwei was awarded the prestigious Knowledge Exchange Catalyst fellowship by the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences and was appointed UK Knowledge Exchange Super Champion by the UK Knowledge Exchange Hub for Mathematical Sciences. These accomplishments highlight the significant impact of her industry collaborations and commitment to advancing R&I.
Diwei has served as a PhD examiner for several internal and external examinations.
- MAC170 Medical Statistics, Module leader
-
MAC173 Statistical Shape and Image Analysis
- Statistics advisor, Mathematics Education Centre, Loughborough University
- Super Champion for the UK Knowledge Exchange Hub for Mathematical Sciences (October 2023 – present)
- Elected Senate Member of the Academic Staff in the School of Science, Loughborough University (2022-present)
- Committee member of the Royal Statistical Society East Midlands Group (2021-present)
- Chair of the Royal Statistical Society East Midlands Group (2019-2021)
- Member of the Royal Statistical Society
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA UK)
- Member of the London Mathematical Society
Current PhD students:
- Lei Lyu (2023-present): Statistical Machine Learning for Traffic Data Simulation and Prediction.
- Chubing Li (2022-present): Uncertainty analysis of real estate investment
- Jennifer Ferris (2021-present): Statistical Models of Lower Limb Soft Tissue for Integration into Multimodal Imaging Technologies
- Stefan Calvert (Sept 2019 - present), Data-Driven Analytical and Statistical Modelling
Completed PhD projects:
- Lei Ye (Jan 2017 – June 2021). Thesis: Computational Statistics for Brain and Muscle Diffusion Tensor Image Analysis.
- Khawla Mahmood (Oct 2014 – Nov 2018). Thesis: Statistical Analysis for Decomposed Multivariate Time Series Data with an application to Water Discharge Forecasting.
- Safa Elsheikh (Oct 2013 – June 2018). Thesis: Computational Statistics for Human Brain Diffusion Tensor Image Analysis.
- Jiajia Yan (Feb 2012 – Nov 2016). Thesis: Statistical Analysis on Diffusion Tensor Estimation.
Postdoc:
- Eddie Chen (2023-present): Statistical Analytics for Oil Evolution.
- Sobhi Berjawi (March 2022-December 2022). Oil analytics.
- Safa Elsheikh (Oct 2019 - Nov 2020). Musculoskeletal Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Image Analysis
- Wil Ward (2017). Medical Image Analysis