We are pleased to announce the recipients of the Richard Lewis Tweedie New Researcher Award, and of the inaugural Peter Gavin Hall IMS Early Career Prize.

Adel Javanmard

The Tweedie Award provides funds for travel to present the Tweedie New Researcher Invited Lecture at the IMS New Researchers Conference. The recipient of the 2020 Tweedie New Researcher Award is Adel Javanmard. Adel is an Assistant Professor in the department of Data Sciences and Operations, Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. He was selected by the IMS Committee on Travel Awards “for novel contributions in high-dimensional statistical inference, iterative estimation methods, non-convex optimization, and network clustering.” Adel describes himself as being “broadly interested in design and analysis of statistical methods for large-scale data.” In his research, he says, he uses and improves on techniques from various areas such as optimization, graphical models, statistics and machine learning. You can read a preview of his lecture here.

Rina Foygel Barber

The Peter Gavin Hall Early Career Prize recognizes early career research accomplishments and research promise in statistics, broadly construed. The inaugural recipient of the 2020 Peter Hall Prize is Rina Foygel Barber, Associate Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago. Rina was selected “for outstanding contributions to the development of methodology and theory for structured high-dimensional data problems such as sparse regression, sparse nonparametric models, and low-rank models, as well as scalable optimization techniques for nonconvex problems.” Rina says her research interests are in “developing and analyzing estimation, inference, and optimization tools for structured high-dimensional data problems such as sparse regression, sparse nonparametric models, and low-rank models.” Rina is a previous Tweedie Award winner.

These awards were created by the IMS to honor the memories of Richard Tweedie and Peter Hall, both of whom spent significant time in their careers mentoring young colleagues, and taking part in professional society activities.