Trevor Hastie

Trevor Hastie, born on June 27, 1953, in South Africa, has revolutionized the field of applied statistics as the John A. Overdeck Professor at Stanford University. His remarkable journey began with degrees from Rhodes University and the University of Cape Town, followed by a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1984 under Werner Stuetzle's supervision. After nine influential years at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he helped develop the R statistical computing environment, he joined Stanford's faculty in 1994. His groundbreaking research spans statistical modeling, machine learning, and bioinformatics, with significant contributions including the development of generalized additive models and principal curves. Hastie has authored six influential books, including the widely-used "Elements of Statistical Learning" and "Statistical Learning with Sparsity," while publishing over 200 research articles that have garnered more than 378,000 citations. His exceptional contributions have earned him numerous accolades, including fellowship in major statistical societies, election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2018, and membership in the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. Currently focusing on applied problems in biology, genomics, and medicine, he continues to advance the field through innovative statistical methodologies and software implementations in the R system, while serving as Professor of Statistics and Biomedical Data Science at Stanford.