Featured photos by F. Tong

Welcome to the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley!

We are a community engaged in research and education in probability and statistics. In addition to developing fundamental theory and methodology, we are actively involved in statistical problems that arise in such diverse fields as molecular biology, geophysics, astronomy, AIDS research, neurophysiology, sociology, political science, education, demography, and the U.S. Census. We have forged strong interdisciplinary links with other departments and areas of study, particularly mathematics, computer science, and biology, and actively seek to recruit graduate students and faculty who can help to build and maintain such links. We also offer a statistical consulting service each semester.

• Emeritus Professor David Harold Blackwell passed away peacefully in Berkeley July 8, 2010. Professor Blackwell was born in Centralia, Illinois on April 24, 1919. Throughout his academic career he was a most distinguished teacher and researcher. He taught at Howard University for ten years before coming to Berkeley in 1955. At Berkeley he had appointments in both the Mathematics and Statistics departments. He became Emeritus Professor in 1989. Professor Blackwell will be missed by many communities. A memorial event will be arranged in due course.
  • Campus News Release
  • Remembering David Blackwell
• Michael Jordan has been invited to deliver the 2011 Neyman Lecture by the Institute for Mathematical Statistics. The Neyman Lecturer is chosen every three years and is one of the highest academic honors bestowed by the IMS.
• UC Berkeley Statistics Commencement 2010 was held on Monday, May 17, 2010. Here is the video of the ceremony.
• The ASA Board has issued a statement endorsing Philip Stark's approach to "Risk Limiting Audits." Here are the press release and the full statement.
• Congratulations to David Aldous and Mike Jordan. The National Academy of Sciences has announced new members and associates, naming David Aldous as a Foreign Associate and Mike Jordan as a member.
• Congratulations to Michael Jordan, who has won the 2009 ACM–AAAI Allen Newell Award.
• Cari Kaufman and David Brillinger have each been profiled in the online magazine ScienceMatters@Berkeley.
• Congratulations to Sourav Chatterjee, who is a co-recipient of the 2010 Rollo Davidson Prize.
• Michael Jordan has just been elected to National Academy of Engineering for contributions to the foundations and applications of machine learning.
• Professor Lester Dubins passed away peacefully at his home in Berkeley on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, at the age of 89. A distinguished probabilist, Professor Dubins joined the Berkeley faculty (50% stat and 50% math) in 1962 and became emeritus in 2004. A family funeral will be held in New York and a memorial is being planned in Berkeley. Here is the Statistics Department Memoriam.
• Here is the Fall 2009 edition of our Departmental Newsletter, "StatistiCal News".
• David Aldous has been invited to be a Plenary Speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Hyderabad, India, August, 2010.
• Mike Jordan has been elected as the next president of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis.
• Congratulations to Bernd Sturmfels, who has been selected as the 2010 SIAM John von Neumann Lecturer. He will receive the award and give the lecture at the SIAM Annual Meeting in Pittsburg, July 12-16, 2010.
• Please join Julie and the rest of his family and the many of us who knew, admired, and loved him in mourning the passing of Erich Lehmann...a great statistician and a great man. He died Saturday morning, September 12th, 2009, at the age of 91. A memorial was held on November 9 in the Great Hall of the Faculty Club. Erich Lehmann's Legacy.