Tsinghua University held an appointment ceremony to welcome Professor Liu Jun, an internationally acclaimed statistician, as a newly appointed chair professor on August 30. Secretary of the CPC Tsinghua University Committee Qiu Yong and Tsinghua University President Li Luming attended, with Vice-President Jiang Peixue presiding over the ceremony.

Qiu Yong (left) and Li Luming (right) with Liu Jun and his wife.

Li Luming (right) presents the appointment certificate to Liu Jun.

On behalf of Tsinghua University, Li Luming extended a warm welcome and heartfelt gratitude to Liu for joining the University on a full-time basis. He thanked Liu for his outstanding contributions to the establishment and development of statistics at Tsinghua. Li said Tsinghua places high priority on faculty development and adheres to the core strategy of strengthening the University through talent development. The University is committed to continuously attracting top-tier talents, he added.

Li said he looked forward to Liu leveraging his extensive academic influence to seize the opportunities of the AI-driven Fourth Industrial Revolution, further advancing the development of disciplines such as statistics and data science at Tsinghua, and cultivating top innovative talents. His contributions, Li noted, are expected to help propel Tsinghua closer to its goal of becoming a leading world-class university.

Liu noted that being born and raised at Tsinghua gave him a profound bond with the University. His decision to return after six decades is driven by both a passion for education and research, and a deep sense of national commitment.

He stated that Statistics and Data Science are key methodologies for interdisciplinary research and a vital cornerstone of artificial intelligence, offering vast potential for future development. Looking ahead, Liu aims to leverage Tsinghua's strengths in artificial intelligence to accelerate the development of statistics and data science. Through these efforts, he hopes to contribute knowledge and solutions to support Tsinghua's Department of Statistics and Data Science in becoming a renowned hub for integrated industry, education, and research both domestically and globally.

Academician Chen Songxi, dean of the Department of Statistics and Data Science, paid tribute to Liu on his joining Tsinghua as a full-time professor. He looks forward to working with Liu to promote the high-quality development of statistics and data science at Tsinghua and across China.

Liu Jun is a world-renowned statistician, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Statistical Association, a fellow of the International Statistical Institute, and a fellow of the International Society for Computational Biology.

Liu has made pioneering contributions in Bayesian inference, computational biology, and bioinformatics. He has been awarded the COPSS Presidents' Award, generally regarded as one of the highest honors in the field of statistics, as well as the Morningside Gold Medal in Applied Mathematics, the top honor for people of Chinese descent under the age of 45 for their seminal achievements in mathematics and applied mathematics.

Liu has been a visiting professor at Tsinghua University since 2005. In 2015, he spearheaded the creation of the Center for Statistical Science at Tsinghua and served as its Honorary Director, actively bringing in top international faculty and greatly boosting the global standing of Tsinghua's statistics discipline. In 2024, he played a key role in establishing Tsinghua University's Department of Statistics and Data Science, serving as the director in charge of the founding work.

Editor: Li Han