SC Connecticut News

Yihong Wu, a distinguished scholar in high-dimensional statistics, information theory, and computer science, has been appointed the James A. Attwood Professor of Statistics and Data Science at Yale University. Wu joined Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 2016 and currently chairs the Department of Statistics and Data Science.

Wu's academic journey includes previous positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and ENSAE ParisTech, along with fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on innovative algorithmic approaches to identify patterns within high-dimensional data. This research has implications across various fields, such as voting records analysis, DNA sequencing, online behavior studies, and traffic pattern modeling.

He is also co-authoring a book titled “Information Theory: From Coding to Learning,” expected to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. The book aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of modern information theory's applications in data science.

Wu has received numerous accolades for his contributions to statistics and data science. He was named a Research Professor at the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute for 2025, became a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2023, and was recognized as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in Mathematics in 2018. His research has been supported by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which also awarded him a CAREER grant.

In addition to his research accomplishments, Wu serves as an associate editor for The Annals of Statistics and has held similar roles for Statistical Science. He actively participates in organizing workshops at renowned institutions like MIT and has delivered talks globally at universities including Stanford and Princeton.

Wu holds a Ph.D. from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Engineering from Tsinghua University.