Ying Sun Wins Young Researcher Award from International Environmetrics Society

Ying Sun, assistant professor of statistics at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, won the 2016 Abdel El-Shaarawi Young Researcher Award from the International Environmetrics Society (TIES).

The award was established by the TIES board in 2002 to honor young statisticians who have made excellent contributions to the development of statistical and/or quantitative methods for environmental science research.

Sun received the award on July 18 during the annual Conference of the International Environmetrics Society in Edinburgh, Scotland, where she also gave a plenary talk.

TIES stated she was given the award for her “outstanding contributions to environmental statistics—in particular in the areas of spatio-temporal statistics, functional data analysis, and visualization—and for her distinguished service to the profession.”

“Sun’s strong accomplishment reflects the excellent work she is doing at KAUST,” said Mootaz Elnozahy, dean of KAUST’s Division on Computer, Electrical, and Mathematical Science and Engineering.

Sun earned her PhD in statistics from Texas A&M University in 2011, spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at SAMSI and The University of Chicago, and worked as an assistant professor at The Ohio State University for one year before joining KAUST in 2014.

“The award is a significant recognition of my research in environmental statistics at KAUST,” Sun said. “I am very grateful for all the support and guidance I have received.”