2021 Myles Hollander Distinguished Lecture

The Department of Statistics at Florida State University is pleased to announce Susan Murphy, Professor of Statistics at Harvard University, as the speaker for its annual endowed Myles Hollander Distinguished Lecture.

Murphy will present “We used a Bandit Algorithm to Personalize But Did It Work?”.

The Myles Hollander Distinguished Lectureship was established by Robert O. Lawton, Distinguished Professor and statistics professor emeritus at Florida State University for Myles Hollander, in appreciation of the university, its statistics department, and the statistics profession. The annual lectureship will recognize an internationally renowned leader and pioneering researcher in statistics who has made a sustained impact on the field, and the lectures will feature topics spanning the breadth of statistics.

About the Speaker

Susan Murphy is Professor of Statistics at Harvard University, Radcliffe Alumnae Professor at the Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, and Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Her lab works on clinical trial designs and online learning algorithms in sequential decision making, in particular in the area of digital health.  She developed the micro-randomized trial for use in constructing mobile health interventions which is in use across a broad range of health related areas. She is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, both of the US National Academies. She is a Past-President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the Bernoulli Society and a former editor of the Annals of Statistics. She is a prior recipient of the RA Fisher Award from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) and the Guy Medal in Silver from the Royal Statistical Society.

About Myles Hollander

Hollander joined the FSU Department of Statistics in 1965 upon completion of his M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics at Stanford University after earning his B.S. in Mathematics from Carnegie Institute of Technology. He made substantial and enduring research contributions to nonparametric statistics, reliability theory, survival analysis, biostatistics and probability theory, among other areas. Hollander co-authored textbooks on nonparametric statistics, biostatistics, and introductory statistics. He is Fellow of the American Statistical Association, Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. Hollander served as editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Theory and Methods (1994-1996) after being editor-elect (1993-1994). In 2003, the American Statistical Association recognized him with the Gottfried E. Noether Senior Scholar Award for his excellence in theory, methodology, and applications in nonparametric statistics.

At FSU, Hollander served as chair of statistics for nine years (1978-1981, 1999-2005). He received the Professorial Excellence Award in 1977, was named Distinguished Research Professor in 1996, and in 1998 was named Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor, the highest honor Florida State faculty bestow upon one of their own. He retired in 2007 after 42 years of service.

For more information and to register for the virtual talk, visit Florida State's Hollander Lecture website.