Columbia University Department of Statistics

The research, teaching, and collaboration of the faculty in the Department of Statistics at Columbia have led to progress in the theory and applications of probability and statistics, from the development of likelihood ratio tests by Wald and Wolfowitz in the 1940s, through the work on decision theory by Howard Raiffa and Herbert Robbins in the 1950s, to pioneering work in more recent decades in probability theory, mathematical finance, Bayesian statistics, machine learning, and applications in epidemiology, bioinformatics, neurobiology, survey research, astronomy, and many other fields. The Department offers a full range of courses in probability and theoretical and applied statistics. In addition to the department’s [undergraduate](http://stat.columbia.edu/programs/undergraduate-programs/), [master’s](http://ma.stat.columbia.edu/), and [doctoral programs](http://stat.columbia.edu/programs/ph-d-program/), the department also participates in the university’s master’s programs in mathematical finance, actuarial science, data science, and quantitative methods in social science. The department hosts outstanding visiting faculty and postdoctoral fellows, and conducts [specialized summer courses](https://summer.sps.columbia.edu/courses/summer-courses/statistics), workshops and seminars in advanced statistics, probability, and interdisciplinary topics. Our annual [focus series](http://stat.columbia.edu/focus-series/) consists of conferences devoted to cutting edge topics in modern statistics.