Susan Holmes

Susan Holmes has revolutionized the application of statistics to biological research as Professor Emerita at Stanford University. After receiving her Ph.D. in 1985 from Université Montpellier II, she built her career through positions at INRA, MIT, Harvard, and Cornell before joining Stanford in 1998. Trained in the French school of Data Analysis, she specializes in nonparametric multivariate statistics applied to complex biological systems. Her research spans immunology, cancer biology, and microbial ecology, with particular focus on developing statistical methods for analyzing microbiome data. She co-authored the influential textbook "Modern Statistics for Modern Biology" with Wolfgang Huber and created Stanford's "Breaking Codes and Finding Patterns" course. Her theoretical work encompasses applied probability, Monte Carlo Markov chains, Graph Limit Theory, and the topology of phylogenetic trees. As a Bass Fellow in Undergraduate Education and member of BioX, she continues to advance the field through her focus on improving statistical analyses and reproducibility in human microbiome studies while maintaining her commitment to innovative teaching methods.