Biography
Matthew completed his undergraduate studies in Advanced Science (Psychology, with a minor equivalent in Mechatronics Engineering) in Sydney, Australia. As a biostatistician at the New South Wales Ministry of Health, he used advanced statistical methods to evaluate statewide health interventions, directly informing policy decisions. He also worked on large-scale mental health data linkage projects at the University of Sydney, with a focus on developing practical tools for improving service delivery. After moving to Cambridge as a research assistant, he contributed to projects with UNICEF and used computer vision on multimodal data to study the mental health impacts of social media. Matthew is now pursuing a PhD in biomedical data science under the supervision of Angela Wood, Mike Inouye, and Sam Lambert, where he is developing digital twin models for cardiovascular risk prediction by integrating genetic, clinical, and environmental data.
Research
My research interests are focused on developing advanced, integrative data science methods to create highly personalised health prediction models, primarily targeting cardiovascular disease risk. My background bridges rigorous biostatistics, large-scale epidemiological analysis, and computational science, enabling me to effectively utilise complex, multi-modal data, including genetic, clinical, and environmental factors. The central goal of my current PhD is the development of digital twin models for CVD risk prediction, which builds directly on my prior experience in using data linkage to understand patterns of healthcare service utilisation and in evaluating statewide health interventions to inform policy. Ultimately, this work seeks to move beyond traditional risk scoring to create dynamic, highly personalised tools that significantly enhance both clinical decision-making and public health service delivery.
Publications
Holtrop, J., Gynnild, M., **Richards, M.**, ..., Dorresteijn, J. (2025). Improving 10-year cardiovascular risk prediction in patients with established cardiovascular disease: flexible addition of risk predictors on top of the SMART2 risk score. (in review).
Ferguson, A., **Richards, M.**, ..., Orben, A. (2025). Digital parenting in the 21st century: Development and validation of a new digital parenting questionnaire. APA Psychological Assessment. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/rk6p8_v2
Iorfino, F., McHugh, C., **Richards, M.**, Skinner, A., Prodan, ..., & Hickie, I. (2023). Patterns of emergency department presentations for a youth mental health cohort: a data linkage study. BJPsych Open. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2023.521.
