Jian Ding, professor in the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University, has been awarded the 2023 Liné and Michel Loève International Prize in Probability (known as the Loève Prize).

Jian Ding earned his PhD in Statistics, focusing on probability theory, at UC Berkeley in 2011. His research area is probability theory, focusing on interactions with statistical physics and computer science theory. Recent research topics include random constraint satisfaction problems, random planar geometry, Anderson localization, and disordered spin models.

“I have received tremendous help and generous support from the Berkeley community of professors, fellow students and staff members. It is such warmth that encouraged me to keep struggling in research, which then turned into a struggle with pleasure and eventually into a pleasure despite struggling,” said Ding. “I hope I can pass such warmth to the next generation, and to the generation after that.”

Ding was previously part of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago, and served as Szegö Assistant Professor at the Department of Mathematics at Stanford. Ding also had a postdoctoral position at the University of Washington. He was a Research Intern at Microsoft, mentored by Jennifer Chayes. He has received numerous awards and prizes, including the International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians (ICCM) Gold Medal, The Rollo Davidson Prize, and the NSF Career Award.

The Liné and Michel Loève International Prize in Probability was created in 1992 in honor of Michel Loève by his widow, Liné. The prize, awarded every two years, is intended to recognize outstanding contributions by mathematical probability researchers under 45 years old, and comes with a $30,000 award.

Michel Loève (1907–79) was a French-American probabilist and mathematical statistician who taught at Berkeley from 1955 until his death. A pioneer of probability theory, he authored the textbook Probability Theory I & II, which served as the standard textbook on advanced probability theory. Loève is also credited with creating the Kosambi–Karhunen–Loève theorem, which is widely used in image processing and data analysis in many fields.

Read more about Jian Ding and the Loève Prize at https://statistics.berkeley.edu/about/news/jian-ding-phd-2011-wins-loeve-prize.