Statistics Professor Receives China’s Highest Academic Honor

Professor Jiming Jiang, Department of Statistics, has been named a Yangtze River (Changjiang) Scholar by the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China.

The Yangtze River Scholar award is the highest academic honor conferred in China and is granted to a small number of foreign scholars each year. These international recipients typically receive a visiting appointment at a major university in China and the title of Changjiang Chaired Professor, and are charged with enhancing international exchange with that university.

Jiang is among the 53 international scholars recognized this year and is the only 2016 recipient in the field of mathematical statistics. He is particularly well known for his work on mixed effects models, the subject matter of his 2007 book. Mixed effects models are used when researchers examine data sets that are strongly linked together, such as multiple online purchases made by different customers. Other interests include small area estimation with applications to survey data, asymptotics and large sample statistics, and developing better and more accurate statistical models.

Jiang will hold a visiting professorship at the Jiangxi University of Finance and Economy during his three-year appointment as a Changjiang Scholar. His main academic goal in China is to encourage junior faculty members to study and conduct research, Jiang said.

Jiang received his B.S. in mathematics and his M.S. in probability and statistics at Peking University in China. He earned his Ph.D. in statistics from University of California, Berkeley. Jiang is an elected member of the International Statistical Institutes and a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Statistical Association.

— Becky Oskin, content strategist in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science