Sudipto Banerjee (born October 23, 1972) is an Indian-American

statistician A statistician is a person who works with Theory, theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private sector, private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, a ...

best known for his work on

Bayesian hierarchical modeling Bayesian hierarchical modelling is a statistical model written in multiple levels (hierarchical form) that estimates the parametric model, parameters of the Posterior probability, posterior distribution using the Bayesian inference, Bayesian metho ...

and inference for

spatial data analysis Spatial analysis is any of the formal techniques which study entities using their topological, geometric, or geographic properties, primarily used in Urban Design. Spatial analysis includes a variety of techniques using different analytic ap ...

. He is Professor of Biostatistics and Senior Associate Dean in the School of Public Health at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

. He served as the Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at UCLA from 2014 through 2023. He served as the elected President of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis in 2022.

Early life and education

Banerjee was born in

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

, India. He attended

Presidency College, Kolkata Presidency University, formerly Presidency College, is a public state university located in College Street, Kolkata. Established in 1817 as the ''Hindoo College'', it was later renamed ''Presidency College'' in 1855 and functioned as a leadi ...

for his undergraduate studies, and the

Indian Statistical Institute The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is a public research university headquartered in Kolkata, India with centers in New Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and Tezpur. It was declared an Institute of National Importance by the Government of India und ...

, graduating with an M.STAT in 1996. Subsequently, he moved to the United States and obtained an MS and PhD in statistics from the

University of Connecticut The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public land-grant research university system with its main campus in Storrs, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1881 as the Storrs Agricultural School, named after two benefactors. In 1893, ...

in 2000, where he was introduced to Bayesian statistics and hierarchical modeling by Alan Enoch Gelfand who had been a pioneer in the development of the Gibbs sampler and

Markov chain Monte Carlo In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a class of algorithms used to draw samples from a probability distribution. Given a probability distribution, one can construct a Markov chain whose elements' distribution approximates it – that ...

algorithms in Bayesian statistics.

Career

Banerjee joined the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2000 as an assistant professor of

Biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) is a branch of statistics that applies statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experimen ...

and was associated with the School of Public Health for 14 years. There he worked on a number of problems and wrote numerous articles on

spatial statistics Spatial statistics is a field of applied statistics dealing with spatial data. It involves stochastic processes (random fields, point processes), sampling, smoothing and interpolation, regional ( areal unit) and lattice ( gridded) data, poin ...

, developing theory and methods related to Bayesian modeling and inference for geographic data with wide-ranging applications in public and environmental health sciences, ecology, forestry, real estate economics and agronomy. In 2014, Banerjee joined the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

as Professor and Chair of Biostatistics.

Research

Banerjee is widely recognized as a leading expert in

and its diverse applications in environmental, social and health sciences. He has made fundamental and pioneering statistical contributions in the broad area of

Bayesian statistics Bayesian statistics ( or ) is a theory in the field of statistics based on the Bayesian interpretation of probability, where probability expresses a ''degree of belief'' in an event. The degree of belief may be based on prior knowledge about ...

and

hierarchical models A hierarchical database model is a data model in which the data is organized into a tree-like structure. The data are stored as records which is a collection of one or more fields. Each field contains a single value, and the collection of fields i ...

for analyzing spatial-temporal data and, more specifically, in the following areas within space-time modeling: (i) statistical inference for spatial gradients and zones of rapid change (also called wombling); (ii) scaling up

Gaussian process In probability theory and statistics, a Gaussian process is a stochastic process (a collection of random variables indexed by time or space), such that every finite collection of those random variables has a multivariate normal distribution. The di ...

models for massive spatial data analysis; (iii)

graphical models A graphical model or probabilistic graphical model (PGM) or structured probabilistic model is a probabilistic model for which a graph expresses the conditional dependence structure between random variables. Graphical models are commonly used i ...

for high-dimensional spatial data analysis; (iii) spatial frailties and space-time

survival analysis Survival analysis is a branch of statistics for analyzing the expected duration of time until one event occurs, such as death in biological organisms and failure in mechanical systems. This topic is called reliability theory, reliability analysis ...

; and (iv) computational algorithms and software for spatial data analysis. His notable statistical innovations include Gaussian predictive process and Nearest-Neighbor Gaussian process models for massive spatial-temporal data, and multivariate

Markov random fields In the domain of physics and probability, a Markov random field (MRF), Markov network or undirected graphical model is a set of random variables having a Markov property described by an undirected graph. In other words, a random field is said to ...

for regionally aggregated

spatial data Geographic data and information is defined in the ISO/TC 211 series of standards as data and information having an implicit or explicit association with a location relative to Earth (a geographic location or geographic position). It is also ca ...

. Banerjee's interdisciplinary research contributions include his leadership in statistical science and oversee activities surrounding exposure data science in the GuLF Study (Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study) Program examining the human-health consequences of the ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill in April 2010. The spill followed an explosion on a

drilling rig A drilling rig is an integrated system that Drilling, drills wells, such as oil or water wells, or holes for piling and other construction purposes, into the earth's subsurface. Drilling rigs can be massive structures housing equipment used to ...

leased by BP, the British oil company, and led to the release of over four million

barrels A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids ...

of oil into the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

, 48 miles off the coast of

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

in the United States. Banerjee has been actively involved in collaborative frameworks involving public health researchers with expertise in epidemiology, environmental and occupational health, and biostatistics that would be responsible for sound statistical practices including innovative methods for comprehensively analyzing the exposure of workers to potentially harmful chemicals. In another high-profile study, Banerjee was invited to serve on a committee formed by the National Research Council and the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2015-16 for his expertise in the use of spatial data science in analyzing and synthesizing geographically referenced flood insurance data in devising an affordability framework for

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Exec ...

(FEMA). Professor Banerjee contributed with his expertise in spatial data science and GIS technologies within a comprehensive policy framework to ascertain when and where premium increases from the

Biggert–Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012 The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is a program created by the Congress of the United States in 1968 through the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968 (P.L. 90-448). The NFIP has two purposes: to share the risk of flood losses through fl ...

lose cost effectiveness.

Awards and honors

* 2009 Abdel El Sharaawi Award from The International Environmetrics Society (TIES) * 2010 Elected Member of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. At a meeting of the Jubilee Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians met and formed the agreed statues of the International Statistical ...

* 2011 Mortimer Spiegelman Award from the

American Public Health Association The American Public Health Association (APHA) is a Washington, D.C.–based professional membership and advocacy organization for public health professionals in the United States. APHA is the largest professional organization of public health pr ...

* 2012 Elected Fellow of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

(ASA) * 2012 International Indian Statistical Association’s Early Career Award * 2015 Distinguished Achievement Medal from the

Section on Statistics and the Environment * 2015 Elected 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 ...

(IMS) * 2017

's Outstanding Application Award * 2018 Elected Fellow of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) * 2019 George W. Snedecor Award from the

Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies The Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) comprises the presidents, past presidents and presidents-elect of the following, primarily Northern American, professional societies of statisticians: * American Statistical Association * ...

(COPSS) * 2020 Elected Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

(AAAS) * 2021-2023 Elected President (President-Elect, 2021; President, 2022; Past-President, 2023) of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA)

Selected works

* * * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banerjee, Sudipto Don Bosco schools alumni Indian Statistical Institute alumni University of Calcutta alumni Indian statisticians Biostatisticians University of Connecticut alumni Living people UCLA School of Public Health faculty 1972 births 20th-century Indian mathematicians Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Scientists from Kolkata Mathematical statisticians Presidency University, Kolkata alumni Spatial statisticians Bayesian statisticians