H&SS News

Carnegie Mellon Professor William Eddy Receives First John C. Warner Professorship of Statistics

PITTSBURGH— William F. Eddy, a professor of statistics at Carnegie Mellon University, has received the school’s first John C. Warner Professorship of Statistics. A distinguished scholar, Eddy has published more than 100 research papers and authored or edited 20 books and monographs.

Since joining Carnegie Mellon in 1976, Eddy has worked in a variety of disciplines, with research covering theoretical probability, statistics and applied problems. His current research focuses on the data generated by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technique used by cognitive neuroscientists to chart brain activity. Eddy is studying other types of imaging as well.

“For more than 30 years, Bill Eddy has had an enormous impact both on Carnegie Mellon, on the field of statistics, and on science,” said John Lehoczky, dean of the university’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “He has been a leader in statistical computing and graphics, and he is widely recognized for his contributions to neuroscience and brain imaging.  This chair recognition is richly deserved."

In addition to his faculty post in the university’s Statistics Department, Eddy holds additional appointments in the Machine Learning Department, the Department of Biological Sciences, the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging.

A pioneer in the field of statistics, he started the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, a joint publication of the American Statistical Association, the Institute for Mathematical Statistics and the Interface Foundation of North America.  He was co-founding editor of CHANCE, a statistics magazine, and founding chairman of the Board of the Interface Foundation.

The professorship is named after John C. Warner, who served as Carnegie Mellon’s president from 1950–1965.  As president, Warner oversaw the rapid growth of industrial administration programs, and the construction of Hunt Library, Scaife Hall and the Graduate School of Industrial Administration (GSIA) building.

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