Professor Ryan Tibshirani has been named Chair of the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, effective July 1st, 2025. 

“Ryan joined UC Berkeley in 2022 and has already contributed immensely to the Department, including as its Deputy Chair,” said CDSS Dean Jennifer Chayes. ”I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to Haiyan Huang for her service as Chair during the past three years. Her strong dedication to the Department and CDSS and her collaborative approach have been most valuable for successfully launching the College. I very much look forward to working with Ryan as he leads the Department during this important period of growth for CDSS. I’ve greatly appreciated how thoughtfully and effectively he has approached challenging questions for the Department and College and I am confident that the Department will be in the most capable hands and will thrive under his chairship. Please join me in warmly thanking Haiyan and Ryan for their service.”

Past Chairs include Jerzy Neyman (1955-1956), David Blackwell (1956-1961), Lucien Le Cam (1961-1965), Henry Scheffé (1965-1968), Elizabeth L. Scott (1968-1973), Erich Lehmann (1973-1976) Peter Bickel (1976-1979 and 1993-1997), David Brillinger (1979-1981), David Freedman (1981-1986), Rudy Beran (1986-1989), Terry Speed (1989-1993), David Aldous (1997-1999), John Rice (1999-2003 and 2006-2009), Deborah Nolan (2003-2006 and 2017-2019), Bin Yu (2009-2012), Philip Stark (2012-2015), Michael Jordan (2015-2017), Sandrine Dudoit (2019-2022), and Haiyan Huang (2022-2025).

“It’s been a real privilege to serve as chair, and I’m grateful for your support and collaboration throughout,” said current Chair Haiyan Huang in a department-wide announcement. 

“I’m excited to guide our department along this next phase of our journey together. This is both an unprecedented time, and a time of great opportunity,” said Tibshirani. “I’m grateful to Haiyan for her service, and I’ll do my best to follow the example set by the great Chairs before me.”

Tibshirani's research focuses on high-dimensional statistics, nonparametric estimation, distribution-free inference, machine learning, convex optimization, numerical methods, and the tracking and forecasting of epidemics. He is a Principal Investigator in the Delphi group, which develops the theory and practice of epidemic detection, tracking, and forecasting, as well as their application in decision-making, both public and private. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning and Foundations and Trends in Statistics, and an elected member of the Council of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Before joining Berkeley, Tibshirani was a faculty member for many years at Carnegie Mellon University.

-Alex Coughlin