Dr Paul Parsons is a quantitative analyst at Botsphere, a division of BetVictor, where he builds mathematical and statistical models for sports pricing and business operations. He was formerly a postgraduate cosmologist at the University of Sussex, building models of the early universe, but left academic research to pursue a career in science writing and journalism, editing the BBC science magazine Focus - culminating with the magazine winning a PPA award (a ‘magazine BAFTA’) in 2007. In the same year his book the Science of Doctor Who was long listed for the Royal Society Prize. A desire to get back solving hard sums, and a growing interest in software development and programming, led him to take his first job in quantitative analysis in 2011.