Jian Ding (丁剑) has been awarded the 2023 Liné and Michel Loève International Prize in Probability (Loève Prize). 

Ding earned his Ph.D. in Statistics, focusing on probability theory in 2011 and currently serves as Chair Professor with the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University in Beijing. His research area is probability theory, focusing on interactions with statistical physics and computer science theory. In particular, his recent research topics include random constraint satisfaction problems, random planar geometry, Anderson localization, and disordered spin models.

"I have received tremendous help and generous support from the Berkeley community of professors, fellow students and staff members. It is such warmth that encouraged me to keep struggling in research, which then turned into a struggle with pleasure and eventually into a pleasure despite struggling," said Ding. "I hope I can pass such warmth to the next generation, and to the generation after that."

The Liné and Michel Loève International Prize in Probability (Loève Prize) was created in 1992 in honor of Michel Loève by his widow, Liné. The prize, awarded every two years, is intended to recognize outstanding contributions by mathematical probability researchers under 45 years old, and comes with a $30,000 award. 

Ding was previously part of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, and served as Szegö Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics at Stanford. Ding also had a postdoctoral position at the University of Washington. He was a Research Intern at Microsoft, where Statistics Distinguished Professor and Dean, College of Computing, Data Science, and Society Jennifer Chayes mentored him.

He has received numerous awards and prizes, including the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) Gold Medal, The Rollo Davidson Prize, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award.

"The Department of Statistics sends its enthusiastic congratulations to Jian," said Chair Haiyan Huang. "The Loève prize has always been special here in our department, and to see one of our alums win the prize makes it even more thrilling." 

Ding joins fellow UC Berkeley Statistics alums and faculty to win the Loève Prize joining former faculty member Allan Sly (Ph.D. in 2009), former faculty members Sourav Chatterjee and Yuval Peres, former postdoc Scott Sheffield, former Miller Research Fellow Alice Guionnet, and Professor Emeritus David Aldous, who won the inaugural prize in 1993. 

Loève (1907 – 1979) was a French-American probabilist and mathematical statistician who taught at Berkeley from 1955 until his death. A pioneer of probability theory, he authored the textbook "Probability Theory I & II" which served as the standard textbook on advanced probability theory. Loève is also credited with creating the Kosambi–Karhunen–Loève theorem, which is widely used in image processing and data analysis in many fields.

-Alex Coughlin