Our People
Chris Dibben
Co-Director, ADR Scotland (Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research)
Professor Chris Dibben is Director of the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research (SCADR), and is Chair of Geography at the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh. He is co-lead for the ADR Scotland partnership, and runs a team of researchers working on the Lifelong Health and Wellbeing Strategic Impact Programme, exploring data relating to health and wellbeing impacts of commuting, education, and Scotland’s New Towns. Chris is also a member of the ADR UK Leadership Committee.
Alastair McAlpine
Senior Statistician, Scottish Government
Alastair McAlpine is the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician and Data Officer (interim). He has overall responsibility for the coordination and implementation of professional standards that help maintain trustworthiness in the use of data, its quality, and that deliver improved outcomes for people in Scotland. Ally brings a wealth of experience having worked previously as Head of Agricultural Statistics, within the Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services, and won several awards when he led the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation including the Civil Service award for ‘Use of evidence and analysis in policy making’ in 2017. Ally is co-director of ADR Scotland and a member of the ADR UK Leadership Committee.
In a previous post, Alastair was responsible for the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) which is the Scottish Government’s official tool for identifying deprived areas across Scotland. In this role, and in addition to publishing the SIMD in 2016, he led on work to open up the code behind SIMD to encourage its re-usability and facilitate analysts who were linking other data sources to the index.
Katherine Falconer
ADR Scotland Executive Programme Manager
Katherine is the ADR Scotland executive programme manager and Head of the Data for Research Unit within the Scottish Government. She joined the team in January 2022 and is responsible for maximising the impact of the ADR Scotland investment. With a PhD in environment economics from the University of Cambridge, Katherine worked at the University of Newcastle before moving into an economy advisory role at Scottish National Heritage and subsequently the Scottish Government. She has a wealth of experience on corporate planning and performance management. Having worked the past 5 years for Registers of Scotland (RoS), Katherine undertake a range of strategic improvement projects and also built up the statistics and analytical function.
Renata Samulnik
Renata is responsible for the development and delivery of the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research (SCADR)'s programmes and, together with colleagues in Scottish Government, for the successful delivery of the ADR Scotland programme of work. She has extensive experience of management within universities and supporting senior academics in the development and implementation of strategy, most recently as Departmental Manager, Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College, London.