Brief Biography

Jim Berger received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Cornell University in 1974. He was a faculty member in the Department of Statistics at Purdue University until 1997, at which time he moved to the Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences (now the Department of Statistical Science) at Duke University, where he is currently the Arts and Sciences Professor of Statistics. He has also been Director of the national Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute since 2002.

Berger was president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics from 1995-1996, chair of the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science of the American Statistical Association in 1995, and president of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis during 2004. He has been involved with numerous editorial activities, including co-editorship of the Annals of Statistics during the period 1998-2000, and has organized or participated in the organization of over 35 conferences.

Among the awards and honors Berger has received are Guggenheim and Sloan Fellowships, the COPSS President's Award in 1985, the Sigma Xi Research Award at Purdue University for contribution of the year to science in 1993, the Fisher Lectureship in 2001, election as foreign member of the Spanish Real Academia de Ciencias in 2002, election to the USA National Academy of Sciences in 2003, award of an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Purdue University in 2004, and the Wald Lectureship in 2007.

Berger's research has primarily been in Bayesian statistics, foundations of statistics, statistical decision theory, simulation, model selection, and various interdisciplinary areas of science and industry, especially astronomy and the interface between computer modeling and statistics. He has supervised 31 Ph.D. dissertations, published over 160 articles and has written or edited 14 books or special volumes.