The COPSS Leadership Academy is a new initiative for emerging leaders in statistics created by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies, spearheaded by Bhramar Mukherjee. This new award recognizes the increasingly important role that early-career statistical scientists are playing in shaping the future of the discipline and is designed both to call attention to the efforts of these individuals and to provide a mechanism for them to share their vision for the field with each other and the statistical community. Awardees will be members of the Leadership Academy for three years. This exciting initiative recognizes junior members of the international statistical community with outstanding contributions to the field of statistical science in one or more of the following areas: education, training, and mentoring; original research and software development; impactful and ethical practice; and service to the profession and to society. The selection committee has named the following nine people to form the 2021–2024 COPSS Leadership Academy:

Emma Benn, Associate Professor, Department of Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: For unmatched dedication to increasing diversity in the statistical sciences; for outstanding contributions to health disparities research; and for significant contributions to educating the next generation of clinical and statistical scientists.

Claire Bowen, Lead Data Scientist, Privacy and Security, Urban Institute: For contributions to the development and broad dissemination of Statistics and Data Science methods and concepts, particularly in the emerging field of Data Privacy, and for leadership of technical initiatives, professional development activities, and educational programs.

Tamara Broderick, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT: For significant contributions to Bayesian nonparametrics and machine learning.

Jeff Goldsmith, Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University: For exemplary leadership in teaching and training students in biostatistics, data science, and public health.

Stephanie Hicks, Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health: For notable contributions to the analysis of high-throughput and single cell methods and data analysis; and for significant educational, mentoring, and outreach efforts to expand and diversify the community of data scientists.

Jonas Peters, Professor of Statistics, University of Copenhagen: For path-breaking contributions to statistical issues in connection with causality research, for an extraordinary active role in research dissemination and for outstanding inspiration of junior researchers.

Aaditya Ramdas, Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics and Data Science, Machine Learning Department, Carnegie Mellon University: For significant contributions to sequential nonparametric inference, uncertainty quantification in machine learning, and statistical methods for reproducibility, as well as the development of an array of unique courses and tutorials, along with extensive mentorship and outreach activities.

Alisa Stephens-Shields, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania of Medicine: For exemplary leadership in interdisciplinary collaboration; for contributions to education in causal inference; and for dedicated effort to increasing the pipeline of talented students into the profession.

Lingzhou Xue, Associate Professor of Statistics, Department of Statistics, Pennsylvania State University: For his innovative contributions to the theory and methodology of high-dimensional statistics and statistical learning, and for his outstanding and prolific service to the profession and to society.

The awards will be presented at the 2021 Joint Statistical Meeting. We are so excited to see how this exemplary group of leaders will continue to shape the future of our profession.