Empirisys Launch Memorial Fund to Inspire Future Data Scientists

Grant in memory of Alex White, who died at 29 from meningitis, aims to support students pursuing careers in process safety and data science

ALEX WHITE joined Empirisys as a data scientist in 2022 and CEO Gus Carroll was quickly “blown away” by the master’s student. “He would come to a solution that none of us could have got to,” Carroll told TCE, reflecting on the complex maths and coding problems Alex worked on.

Graduating with a physics master’s degree from the University of Exeter in 2016, Alex worked in retail and finance before finding his calling in data science. As part of a post-graduate diploma in applied data and AI at the University of South Wales, he started an industrial placement at process safety startup Empirisys. Carroll immediately saw him click with the work, reserving a full-time job for Alex once he completed his studies.

In June 2023, just shy of submitting his final dissertation, Alex died in hospital after contracting meningitis from the swim leg of a triathlon. He was 29 years old.

Determined not to let Alex’s short time at Empirisys be “completely pointless and in vain” Carroll set up the Alex White Memorial Fund. The scheme will provide a £4,000 grant to process safety-minded students studying towards a master’s degree or equivalent on a data science-related course.

“We see this as a way of memorialising Alex,” Carroll told TCE. “We want to do something relatively simple that will help sustain Alex’s memory. It’s never going to be the Wellcome Trust – it’s just going to help a small number of graduates who are really interested in this area to do something they might not otherwise do.

“Alex was quite an anxious young lad,” Carroll added. “He had the inner voice that always told him that he wasn’t good enough.” He was also dyslexic, so Carroll is encouraging neurodiverse students to apply for the grant.

Fitting tribute

For Carroll, one of the most wretched things about Alex’s death was that he was seemingly overcoming his anxiety and self-confidence issues as he worked on increasingly complex problems.

“When he was really into it, there were none of those confidence issues,” Carroll said. “I could see so much potential, such a love for life.”
Carroll rarely comes across people for whom he has such affection and recalls endless pub chats with Alex about everything from mental health to their shared love of rugby. He hopes the memorial fund will help shape similarly bright data scientists.

Alex’s father Geoff told TCE the memorial fund is a fitting tribute to his son’s life. “He had always been someone who looked out for everybody else…he was very generous with his time and money.”