Peking University, May 2, 2013:  Yu Bin, B.S.'84 in Math from Peking University (PKU), has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (also known as the American Academy).

Prof. Yu Bin (File photo)

Founded in 1780, the Academy is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy's elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.

Yu Bin, chancellor's professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is among the 7 members elected in 2013 to the American Academy's Section of Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics. The election results, released on April 23, put her abreast with other successful Chinese mathematicians in the Academy: Fan Chung Graham, Yum-Tong Siu, Horng-Tzer Yau, Lin Fanghua, Tian Gang, Sun-Yung Alice Chang, Terence Tao, Hou Yizhao, and Zhang Shouwu. 

Professor Yu's study career at PKU dates back to 1984, when she earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the former Probability and Statistics Subject, on which the School of Mathematical Sciences was established later.

Yu has helped and cooperated with PKU exchange scholars and students at Berkeley for years. She has been chair of the Science Committee, the Center of Statistics Research at PKU since 2011.

Yu is also founding co-director of PKU's Microsoft Statistics and Information Technology Laboratory, pushing forwards the development of statistics at PKU.

Furthering her graduate studies in statistics at Berkeley, Yu earned a master's degree in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1990. After the postdoctoral study at Berkeley's Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and an assistant professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she returned to Berkeley as faculty member in 1993, was tenured in 1997, and became Chancellor's Professor in 2006. She also worked at Bell Labs from 1998 to 2000, while on leave from Berkeley, and has held visiting positions at several other universities.

According to the 2012 election results, Yu will take up a one-year presidentship of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics since August, 2013. Previously, she chaired the Department of Statistics at Berkeley from 2009 to 2012.

Professor Yu is also fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Statistical Association (ASA), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Yu has published more than 70 papers in refereed journals, as well as more than 30 refereed conference papers and book chapters. She is now action editor for the Journal of Machine Learning Research, as well as associate editor for Technometrics and Statistica Sinica.

Since 2003, Professor Yu has been leading lectures and academic activities in China. She was elected in the Chang Jiang Scholars Program in 2006.

Written by: Jiang Zhaohui
Edited by: Arthars
Source: PKU News (Chinese)