UCL academic awarded Research Prize in Royal Statistical Society 2019 Honours list
13 February 2019
Dr Tengyao Wang (UCL Statistics) won the Research Prize for his innovative work in high-dimensional statistics, which can have applications ranging from medical imaging to network security monitoring.
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) Research Prize is awarded to a Fellow of the Society near the beginning of their research career for an outstanding published contribution to statistical theory or application.
Dr Wang was commended for his work on providing a new understanding to computational and statistical trade-offs; developing theory for multi-dimensional shape constrained estimators; and introducing a new paradigm and method for detecting changes in high-dimensional data streams.
The RSS is one of the world's most distinguished and renowned statistical societies. Founded in 1834, the RSS is a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians, and a charity that promotes statistics for the public good.
Dr Wang said, "I am really excited to receive this award. I hope that my pursuit of theoretical and methodological statistics can provide a more solid foundation to statistical methods as they get increasingly applied to every facet of our lives."
“My work in the area of high-dimensional statistics involves identifying the most relevant features from a large number. For example, in situations where we simultaneously monitor many data streams over time, my work can be applied to identify structural changes localised in a small number of these data streams. This work, known as high-dimensional change point estimation, has applications ranging from medical imaging to network security monitoring.â€
RSS’ President Professor Deborah Ashby commented: “This year’s winners are all outstanding statisticians of different ages from around the world truly reflecting the Society’s very diverse membership.â€
Dr Wang will collect his award this September at RSS’s annual conference in Belfast.