Prof Wahba win International Prize in Statistics

Former St Cross Fellow Professor Grace Wahba

St Cross College congratulates Former Fellow Professor Grace Wahba, on being awarded the 2025 International Prize in Statistics. 

She is being honoured for her influential contributions to data science, particularly her groundbreaking work on smoothing splines—an approach that has quietly shaped the way modern machine learning handles complex data. Her pioneering ideas in modelling patterns without rigid assumptions laid the foundation for tools like neural networks, gradient boosting, and support vector machines. She also developed key methods such as the Representer Theorem and generalised cross-validation, which made these models more practical and scalable. 

In 1967, Grace Wahba became the first female faculty member in the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, breaking new ground for women in a field long dominated by men. Throughout her 51-year career, she not only advanced statistical science but also mentored generations of statisticians, many of whom have become leaders in the field. Her influence endures not only through her published work but also through the widespread adoption of her methods in both academic research and real-world application  

Professor Wahba received her B.A. from Cornell University, M.A. from the University of Maryland, and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her notable honours include election to the National Academy of Sciences and the R.A. Fisher Lectureship, along with major awards such as the COPSS Elizabeth Scott Award and the Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation. She is currently Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

The International Prize in Statistics is awarded every two years by five top international statistics organisations. It honours major achievements with original ideas that have led to real-world breakthroughs across different fields.