Department of Statistics

Sequoia Hall front entrance seen from Math Corner

Statistics is a uniquely fascinating discipline, poised at the triple conjunction of mathematics, science, and philosophy.

As the first and most fully developed information science, it's grown steadily in influence for 100 years, combined now with 21st century computing technologies. What do statisticians do? Everything.

Ten Statistical Ideas That Changed the World

In this collection of videos, Trevor Hastie and Rob Tibshirani interview authors of seminal papers in the field of statistics. This project was part of Stanford's STATS 319 class held in Winter Quarter of 2024.

Visit the full playlist on YouTube

News & Announcements

Appointments

A new Stein Fellow for 2024

Andrew Ilyas will join our community of Fellows at the start of the fall quarter. Andrew has completed a lengthy career at MIT — undergraduate, graduate, and PhD — and hopes to teach on topics of deep learning, general machine learning, algorithms, causal inference, optimization, and more.

Appointments

Brian Trippe arrives as Assistant Professor of Statistics

A new appointment will join our department on July 1 (jointly supported by Stanford Data Science). Brian comes to us from a postdoctoral stint with the Columbia University Department of Statistics as well as a visiting researcher post with the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design in Seattle.

Press

Dennis Sun is on a mission to make statistics more relatable

In this feature article from the School of Humanities and Sciences website, our incoming data science program director describes his ambition to help students see how statistics, data science, and probability apply to their everyday lives by infusing introductory courses in these subjects with relatable examples, and even a lot of fun.

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2025-26 Graduate Admission Application Deadlines

PhD program: December 4, 2024

MS programs: January 15, 2025

Prospective Students

Upcoming Seminars & Events

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Quanta Magazine's "The Joy of Why" Podcast

Mathematician and author Steven Strogatz and astrophysicist and author Janna Levin interview leading researchers about the great scientific and mathematical questions of our time in this long-running series. In the latest episode, "How is AI Changing the Science of Prediction?", Professor Emmanuel Candès speaks about black boxes, uncertainty, and the power of inductive reasoning.

Industrial Affiliates Program

Our IA Program develops practical relationships between the department and the industrial community by creating opportunities for scientists, engineers, and developers from high-profile businesses to meet with our graduate students and share research topics in an informal setting. The annual conference for members, faculty, and final-year PhD candidates is a highlight event in our academic year.

Department Technical Reports

The entire collection of Tech Reports issued by the Statistics Department — since 1949 — is available in PDF format. Browse the Archive in date order or search by Author, Year, Series, or Title keyword: advance your research or just find something interesting every time!