Fang Liu (statistician)

Fang Liu is a Chinese-American statistician and data scientist whose research topics include differential privacy, statistical learning theory, Bayesian statistics, regularization, missing data, and applications in biostatistics. She is a professor in the Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Notre Dame.[1][2]

Education and career edit

Liu was talented in mathematics as a child, competed in mathematics competitions, and wanted to become a mathematician, but was discouraged from doing so by her parents, who wanted her to become a physician. As a compromise, she studied biology at Peking University,[2] where she earned a bachelor's degree in 1997.

She began her graduate studies at Iowa State University intending to study genetics, but quickly switched to a program in statistics,[2] and earned a master's degree there in 1999, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2003.[1] Her dissertation, Bayesian Methods for Statistical Disclosure Control in Microdata, involved both data privacy and Bayesian statistics, and was supervised by Roderick J. A. Little.[3]

After completing her doctorate, she became a researcher at the Merck Research Laboratories. She returned to academia, joining the Notre Dame faculty, in 2011.[4]

Recognition edit

Liu was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2021, "for novel contributions to differentially private synthetic data and Bayesian modeling; for outstanding interdisciplinary research in clinical and public health studies; for leadership in education and training; and for service to the profession".[4]

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Fang Liu", People, Notre Dame Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics, retrieved 2021-07-28
  2. ^ a b c "Facts, Figures and Frontiers: Fang Liu, College of Science", Women Lead, University of Notre Dame, 8 March 2021, retrieved 2021-07-28
  3. ^ Fang Liu at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. ^ a b McCool, Deanna Csomo (3 May 2021), "Liu named Fellow of American Statistical Association", News, University of Notre Dame College of Science, retrieved 2021-07-28

External links edit