Elizaveta (Liza) Levina is a Russian and American mathematical statistician. She is the Vijay Nair Collegiate Professor of Statistics at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, and is known for her work in

high-dimensional statistics In statistical theory, the field of high-dimensional statistics studies data whose dimension is larger than typically considered in classical multivariate analysis. The area arose owing to the emergence of many modern data sets in which the dimensi ...

, including

covariance estimation In statistics, sometimes the covariance matrix of a multivariate random variable is not known but has to be estimated. Estimation of covariance matrices then deals with the question of how to approximate the actual covariance matrix on the basis o ...

graphical models ''Graphical Models'' is an academic journal in computer graphics and geometry processing publisher by Elsevier. , its editor-in-chief is Jorg Peters of the University of Florida. History This journal has gone through multiple names. Founded in 1 ...

, statistical network analysis, and

nonparametric statistics Nonparametric statistics is the branch of statistics that is not based solely on parametrized families of probability distributions (common examples of parameters are the mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based on either being distr ...

Academic biography

Levina completed her undergraduate studies in mathematics at

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBU; russian: Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the G ...

in Russia in 1994. After earning a master's degree in mathematics from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

in 1997, she completed her PhD in statistics in 2002 from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Her dissertation, supervised by

Peter J. Bickel Peter John Bickel (born 1940) is an American statistician and Professor of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley. Education and career Bickel studied physics at the California Institute of Technology. He graduated from University ...

, was ''Statistical Issues in Texture Analysis''. Levina joined the faculty of Department of Statistics at University of Michigan after completing her PhD in 2002. She was promoted to associate professor in 2009 and to full professor in 2014. She has been serving as the department's PhD program director since 2012 and also associate chair since 2014. She is also affiliated faculty at the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) and the Center for the Study of Complex Systems.

Recognition

Levina received the American Statistical Association Gottfried E. Noether Young Scholar Award in 2010 for her contributions to nonparametric statistics. She was elected to the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from gov ...

in 2011. In 2016, she was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

and as a Fellow of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts o ...

(IMS) . She was awarded the Vijay Nair Collegiate Professorship in 2017. She was an invited speaker at the 2018

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

, speaking in the section on Probability and Statistics. She has been chosen as a 2019 Medallion Lecturer for the IMS. Professor Liza Levina is a “Thomson-ISI highly cited” researcher. She received University of Michigan Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 2019. This honor is awarded university-wide to five senior faculty members annually.

Family

Levina's husband, Edward Ionides, is also a professor of statistics at the University of Michigan. They have three children.

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Levina, Elizaveta Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American statisticians Russian statisticians Women statisticians Saint Petersburg State University alumni University of Utah alumni University of Michigan faculty Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Mathematical statisticians