Latest news

The UC Berkeley Academic Senate’s Committee on Teaching has presented Statistics Lecturer Cari Kaufman with an Extraordinary Teaching in

We are very pleased to announce that Professor Jasjeet Sekhon has been named among the 2021 Fellows of the American Statistical Association (ASA). Many congratulations to Jas on receiving this well-deserved honor!

Two Sigma is generously sponsoring a graduate student fellowship for the academic year 2021-2022.

We are very pleased to announce that Professor Alan Hammond has been named among the 2021 Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). Many congratulations to Alan on receiving this well-deserved honor!

Emeritus Professor and Professor of the Graduate School Nicholas Jewell was honored with the 2021 Nathan Mantel Award for Lifetime Contributions to Statistics in Epidemiology.

Below is the text from the official announcement:

Congratulations to Fernando Pérez for the shout out from Nature, featuring IPython/Jupyter among the “Ten computer codes that transformed science”, along with Fortran and the fast Fourier Transform. Below is an excerpt from Jeffrey M. Perkel's article:

Professor Emeritus Leo Goodman passed away yesterday, at the age of 92. 

Professor Goodman joined UC Berkeley in 1986, as Class of 1938 Professor in the Sociology Department and the Statistics Department, and retired in 2017.

The department of Statistics at the University of Connecticut has announced that Professor Peter Bickel will be the speaker at the 26th Pfzier/ASA/UCONN Distinguished Statistician Colloquium.

The Department of Statistics is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the UC Regents’ resolution “That young ladies be admitted into the University on equal terms in all respects with young men.” 

We are delighted to share this remembrance of David Blackwell written by Peter Bickel for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled, "David Blackwell, 1919-2010: An Explorer in Mathematics and Statistics."

Professor Philip Stark was interviewed by PBS NewsHour to discuss risk-limiting audits, which are now being used in over 45 states to verify the accuracy of election results: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-some-election-officials-are-trying....

We are pleased to announce the panel discussion on "Election Integrity and Security" in the Berkeley Conversations series, Monday, October 26th, 2-3 pm (https://bids.berkeley.edu/events/election-integrity-and-security). 

More good news on the Data Science front with a $12.5 million National Science Foundation award to UC Berkeley and MIT for the creation of the Foundations of Data Science Institute (FODSI). Peter Bartlett will be Co-Director of FODSI and other Berkeley PIs include Mike Jordan, Martin Wainwright, and Bin Yu.

Congratulations to Peter Bartlett (PI) and Bin Yu (co-PI) who were awarded $10 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Simons Foundation to investigate the theoretical underpinnings of deep learning!

Actor/comedian Rainn Wilson surprised the Class of 2020 with a video message on the Statistics Department's Graduation Tribute that went live on You Tube Friday, June 5th at noon PST.

Link to Tribute Video

STATISTICS GRADUATION TRIBUTE 2020
LIVE STREAM EVENT
Friday, June 5, 2020 at 12 p.m. PST.

Although we are disappointed we are not able to hold a commencement ceremony and celebrate together in person this year, we wanted to do something for you and have come up with a plan to create a video to honor you and your accomplishments.

We are pleased to invite you to view this live streamed celebration on Friday, June 5, 2020 at 12 p.m. PST.

Congratulations to our SF-Bay Area ASA Student Travel Award Winners! Eli Ben-Michael, Nima Hejazi and Yu Wang will be presenting their work virtually on June 18. 

Every year the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of American Statistical Association (SFASA) issues Student Travel Awards to graduate students who plan to give a presentation at the annual Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM). This year’s JSM will be held virtually from August 1st to August 6th, 2020.

Berkeley alumnus Shankar Bhamidi, Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has been named Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). Dr. Bhamidi received the award for his many outstanding contributions to a wide variety of topics in network modeling and its applications. He completed his PhD in 2008, under David Aldous.

We are delighted to announce that Mike Jordan received an Honorary Doctorate from Yale University. Previous Berkeley honorees include David Blackwell (Statistics), Steven Chu, and Jennifer Doudna.

We are thrilled that Statistics Major Anna Boser is this year’s winner of the University Medal, Berkeley’s highest honor for a graduating senior.  The University Medal was established in 1871 and the “Medalist is an exemplar of the university's highest ideals."  Anna maintained a 4.0 GPA while also participating in extensive field research and serving as an EMT in the Berkeley Medical Reserve Corps.