Louis Chen Hsiao Yun (; born 26 December 1940) is emeritus professor at the

National University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the c ...

. Chen earned his

BSc A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(Honours) from University of Singapore in 1964 and completed his

MSc MSC may refer to: Computers * Message Sequence Chart * Microelectronics Support Centre of UK Rutherford Appleton Laboratory * MIDI Show Control * MSC Malaysia (formerly known as Multimedia Super Corridor) * USB mass storage device class (USB MSC ...

as well as

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Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1969 and 1971 respectively. In 1972, he joined the mathematics department of the then University of Singapore as a

lecturer Lecturer is an List of academic ranks, academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. T ...

. He was promoted to senior lecturer in 1977,

associate professor Associate professor is an academic title with two principal meanings: in the North American system and that of the ''Commonwealth system''. Overview In the ''North American system'', used in the United States and many other countries, it is a ...

in 1981 and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

in 1989.

Academic career

Chen held several administrative appointments at the

(NUS). At NUS's

Faculty of Science Faculty may refer to: * Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States) * Faculty (instrument), an instrument or warrant ...

, he was head of the Department of Mathematics from July 1996 to June 2000 and head of the Department of Statistics and Applied Probability from July 2002 to June 2004. He was also director of NUS's Institute for Mathematical Sciences from July 2000 to December 2012. For his achievements in his field of study, he was appointed Tan Chin Tuan Centennial Professor from July 2006 to December 2012 and distinguished professor from January 2013 to June 2015.

Research, honours and awards

Chen's research interests include the Stein-Chen method of Poisson approximation which deals with the probability of rare events. This method and technique is widely applied in many areas ranging from

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

. He was the first Asian to be elected President of the

Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability The Bernoulli Society is a professional association which aims to further the progress of probability and mathematical statistics, founded as part of the International Statistical Institute in 1975. It is named after the Bernoulli family of mathema ...

from August 1997 to July 1999, and was the first East Asian to be elected President 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 ...

from August 2004 to July 2005. He was also elected Vice-President of 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 ...

from August 2009 to July 2011. Among his numerous local and international awards and honours are his election as Fellow of TWAS, The World Academy of Sciences in 2000 and Fellow of the Singapore National Academy of Science in 2011; a Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2002; and the conferment by the French Government of the title of Chevalier dans l'

Ordre des Palmes Académiques A suite, in Western classical music and jazz, is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral/concert band pieces. It originated in the late 14th century as a pairing of dance tunes and grew in scope to comprise up to five dances, sometimes with ...

in 2005 for his service to education.

Selected works

*Chen, Louis H. Y., "Poisson approximation for dependent trials", Ann. Probability 3 (1975), no. 3, 534–545. *Chen, Louis H. Y.; Goldstein, Larry; Shao, Qi-Man, "Normal approximation by Stein's method". Probability and its Applications (New York). Springer, Heidelberg, 2011. . *Barbour, A. D.; Chen, Louis H. Y.; Loh, Wei-Liem, "Compound Poisson approximation for nonnegative random variables via Stein's method", Ann. Probab. 20 (1992), no. 4, 1843–1866. *Chen, Louis H. Y.; Shao, Qi-Man, "Stein's method for normal approximation". An introduction to Stein's method, 1–59, Lect. Notes Ser. Inst. Math. Sci. Natl. Univ. Singap., 4, Singapore Univ. Press, Singapore, 2005.

References

* * *

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Louis Hsiao Yun Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Singaporean mathematicians Singaporean statisticians Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Academic staff of the National University of Singapore Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute Singaporean people of Chinese descent Chevaliers of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques Recipients of the Pingat Pentadbiran Awam