Martin Wainwright (statistician)

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Martin Wainwright
Born1973 (age 5051)
Alma mater University of Waterloo (B.Math)
Harvard University (M.S.)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D.)
Awards Sloan Research Fellowship (2005)
National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2006)
COPSS Presidents' Award (2014)
Guggenheim Fellowship (2024)
Scientific career
FieldsStatistics, machine learning
Institutions University of California, Berkeley
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis Stochastic processes on graphs with cycles: geometric and variational approaches  (2002)
Doctoral advisor Alan S. Willsky
Tommi S. Jaakkola
Other academic advisors Michael I. Jordan
Website wainwrigwork.github.io

Martin James Wainwright (born 1973) [1] is a statistician and the Cecil H. Green Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a position he has held since July 2022. At MIT, Wainwright is also affiliated with the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, where he is a principal investigator, and a member of the Statistics and Data Science Center. [2] [3]

Contents

Before joining MIT in 2022, Wainwright was part of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where he held the Howard Friesen Chair at the time of his departure. [2]

Education and career

Wainwright earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 1994 [4] and a master's degree in vision science from Harvard University in 1998. [5] [6] [7] In 2002, Wainwright completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the supervison of Alan S. Willsky and Tommi S. Jaakkola. His dissertation, which he developed at the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems, [2] [6] was titled Stochastic processes on graphs with cycles: geometric and variational approaches. [1] [8] For his thesis, Wainwright received the electrical engineering and computer science department's George M. Sprowls Award for the best Ph.D. thesis in computer science. [9]

Following his Ph.D., Wainwright moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he was a postdoctoral researcher for Michael I. Jordan from 2002 to 2004. [10] [11] In the fall of 2004, he joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley with a joint appointment between the Department of Statistics and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. [12] [13] [14] [15]

In July 2022, he returned to MIT, becoming the Cecil H. Green Professor in both the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, where he is in the Faculty of Artificial Intelligence and Decision-Making, and the Department of Mathematics. [16] [2]

Awards and recognition

Wainwright has received multiple awards for his work, including the COPSS Presidents' Award from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies in 2014 for his "fundamental and ground-breaking contributions to high-dimensional statistics, graphical modelling, machine learning, optimization and algorithms ..., as well as new methodology with wide-ranging implications for numerous applications". [17] [18] From the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, he received a Medallion Award and Lecture in 2013 [19] and the Blackwell Award and Lecture in 2017. [20] [21]

He was awarded a Sloan Research Fellowship in 2005, [22] [23] National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2006, [24] and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2024. [25] [26]

Wainwright was selected as a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2014 "for his fundamental research in statistical machine learning and high-dimensional statistics". [27] [28]

Publications

In addition to numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals and conference proceedings, Wainwright has (co-)authored the following three books:

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References

  1. 1 2 Wainwright, Martin J. (2002). Stochastic processes on graphs with cycles: geometric and variational approaches (Ph.D. thesis). Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. hdl:1721.1/8371 . Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Martin Wainwright joins MIT faculty and LIDS". MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems . Massachusetts Institute of Technology. July 1, 2022. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  3. "Martin Wainwright". MIT Statistics + Data Science Center. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on November 29, 2022. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  4. "COPSS Award for alumnus Martin Wainwright". University of Waterloo. October 17, 2014. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015. Retrieved October 3, 2024.
  5. "Contributors". IEEE Transactions on Information Theory . 49 (5): 1381. May 2003. doi:10.1109/TIT.2003.810621. Archived from the original on October 10, 2015. Retrieved October 3, 2024. Martin J. Wainwright received the B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, in 1994, the M.S. degree in vision science from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, in 2002.
  6. 1 2 Wanucha, Genevieve (2011). "Data Deluge". LIDS/ALL. MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems. Archived from the original on October 8, 2022. Retrieved October 3, 2024. Martin works as a professor ... at UC Berkeley. These days, he's spending his sabbatical here at LIDS. It's not far from home, actually, as Martin earned his PhD here in 2002. ... After receiving his undergraduate degree in mathematics, he [Wainwright] earned a Masters in neuroscience from Harvard.
  7. "Alumni – Graduate Students". Harvard Vision Sciences Laboratory. Harvard University. Archived from the original on October 3, 2024. Retrieved October 3, 2024. Martin Wainwright, graduate student (PhD), 1994–1996
  8. Martin James Wainwright at the Mathematics Genealogy Project. RetrievedOctober 3, 2024.
  9. "2003 MIT Award Winners – Electrical engineering and computer science". MIT Tech Talk . Vol. 47, no. 31. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. June 4, 2003. p. 12. hdl:1721.3/204350. Archived from the original on November 24, 2004. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  10. "Michael I. Jordan (CV)" (PDF). Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 4, 2016. Retrieved October 4, 2024. Postdoctoral Supervision ... Martin Wainwright, 2002–2004
  11. "EECS/ERL Roster (no students)". Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on August 11, 2002. Retrieved October 4, 2024. [Name:] Wainwright, Martin James ... [Status:] Postdoctorate ... [Sub-Affiliation:] jordan
  12. "New Faculty in EECS". Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on October 24, 2004. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  13. "Martin Wainwright: Biography". Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on April 1, 2005. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  14. "Martin Wainwright". Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing . Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  15. "EECS Faculty List". Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on October 9, 2004. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  16. "New Faculty (2021-2022)". MIT Schwarzman College of Computing . Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Archived from the original on July 29, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  17. "COPSS Awards at JSM". Institute of Mathematical Statistics . October 1, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  18. "2014 COPSS Presidents' Award Winner". Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies . Archived from the original on May 30, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  19. "IMS Special Invited Lecturers in 2013". Institute of Mathematical Statistics . October 3, 2012. Archived from the original on June 10, 2023. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  20. "Special Lectures in 2017". Institute of Mathematical Statistics . May 15, 2017. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  21. "Honored Special Awards & Lecturers Recipient List". Institute of Mathematical Statistics . Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  22. "Sloan Research Fellowships – Research Fellowship Award Winners of 2005". Alfred P. Sloan Foundation . Archived from the original on April 4, 2005. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  23. "2005 Annual Report" (PDF). Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. p. 2. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 6, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  24. "CAREER: Novel Message-Passing Algorithms for Distributed Computation in Graphical Models: Theory and Applications in Signal Processing". National Science Foundation . Archived from the original on October 4, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  25. Costello, Sarah (April 26, 2024). "Three from MIT awarded 2024 Guggenheim Fellowships". MIT News . Massachusetts Institute of Technology . Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  26. "Fellows: Martin J. Wainwright". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation . Archived from the original on July 23, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  27. "IMS Fellows 2014". Institute of Mathematical Statistics . July 1, 2014. Archived from the original on April 19, 2024. Retrieved October 4, 2024.
  28. "Prof. Martin Wainwright is named IMS Fellow". Department of Statistics at UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. July 25, 2014. Retrieved October 4, 2024.