Paul Marchant
Paul Marchant is a UK-based retired academic who became a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society in 1994. Beyond academia, he contributed to expert witness work, served on an NHS research ethics committee, and held leadership roles within the Royal Statistical Society. In the 1980s, he grew concerned about rising light pollution, and around the turn of the millennium began questioning the scientific evidence behind the assumption that more outdoor lighting improves public safety, ultimately finding it to be weak and poorly substantiated. Since then, he has critiqued numerous lighting studies and conducted primary research on large-scale relighting projects, none of which demonstrated a measurable safety benefit. His work is accessible through the Artificial Light At Night Research Literature Database, and he advocates for greater involvement of qualified statisticians in rigorously evaluating claims made within the lighting research field.