We are proud to share that Sander Greenland, Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology and Statistics, and a longtime joint faculty of our department, has been named a recipient of the 2025–2026 Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award. This prestigious honor recognizes outstanding research, teaching, and service performed after retirement. Professor Greenland is one of three emeritus faculty selected this year.Since retiring in 2012, Professor Greenland has remained a leading figure in epidemiology, consistently ranked among the world’s most highly cited researchers. His extensive body of work—spanning causal inference, bias analysis, Bayesian methods, and meta-analysis—has had a lasting impact on both methodological development and public health policy worldwide. In addition to publishing more than 90 peer-reviewed papers during his emeritus years, he continues to mentor scholars across institutions, reinforcing UCLA’s standing as a global hub for epidemiologic research and training.

More details are available here.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Oscar Madrid Padilla, PhD student Junpeng Ren, and PhD alumnus Yik Lun Kei. They are co-authors of a paper that was published in Science (https://science.org). This is the culmination of a 30-year effort to study the conflicts between groups of chimpanzees. This work has been covered by many mainstream media organizations such as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, etc.

A. Sandel, Y. He, J. Ren, Y. Kei, … O.H. Madrid-Padilla, … J. Mitani. Lethal conflict after group fission in wild chimpanzees. Science, 392(6794).

Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz4944

In the newest 2026 U.S. News & World Report ranking of Statistics PhD programs, our department has been ranked #12 in the United States:

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/statistics-rankings

The ranking highlights the department’s excellence in research, education, and training of the next generation of statisticians and data scientists. This is made possible by the collective efforts of our faculty, researchers, graduate students, and staff, whose dedication and contributions continue to strengthen the department’s national and international reputation.

Our very own Michael Tsiang was recently interviewed for the Bruin to Bruin Podcast. Use this link to hear what he has to say regarding his career, teaching philosophy, and student mental health.