Statistics Associate Professors Peng Ding and Avi Feller have won the 2023 Emerging Leader Awards from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS). The award recognizes early career statistical scientists who show evidence of and potential for leadership and who will help shape and strengthen the field.

Ding's research focuses on causal inference in experiments and observational studies, with applications to biomedical and social sciences. His Emerging Leader award was for outstanding contributions to the foundations and applications of causal inference, for both randomized experiments and observational studies, with emphasis on setting with high-dimensional covariates and complex structures. 

Feller, who also holds an appointment at the Goldman School of Public Policy, received an Emerging Leader Award for ground-breaking research in causal inference and program evaluation; for bridging statistics, public policy, and education research; and for commitment to building a more inclusive field. 

"The whole Department of Statistics is overjoyed for Peng and Avi," said Chair Haiyan Huang. "Their recognition as emerging leaders is well-deserved, and we look forward to their bright futures." 

Deng and Feller join a growing list of Statistics faculty who COPSS has recently recognized. Distinguished Professor Bin Yu was awarded the 2023 Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship (DAAL). Formerly known as the R. A. Fisher Award and Lectureship, the DAAL recognizes meritorious achievement and scholarship in statistical science and recognizes the highly significant impact of statistical methods on scientific investigations. In 2018, Yu was awarded the Elizabeth L. Scott Award for principled leadership in the international scientific community. Professor Martin Wainwright won the 2014 Presidents' Award for fundamental and ground-breaking contributions to high-dimensional statistics, graphical, machine learning, optimization, and algorithms covering deep and elegant mathematical analysis, as well as methodology with wide-ranging implications for numerous applications. Professor Emeritus and Professor of the Graduate School Peter Bickel won the inaugural  Presidents' Award in 1979.

-Alex Coughlin