Eric D. Kolaczyk

Welcome!

I am a Professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University, where I also serve as the inaugural director of the new Computational and Data Systems Initiative (CDSI).  I was previously on faculty at Boston University, during which time I served as director of the Program in Statistics, the founding director of the department’s MS in Statistical Practice (MSSP) program, and the director of the Hariri Institute for Computing.

Broadly speaking, my research is focused at the point of convergence where statistical and machine learning theory and methods support human endeavors enabled by computing and engineered systems, frequently from a network-based perspective of systems science. With a variety of excellent students and collaborators, I’ve had the pleasure of developing novel methodologies for design, representation, modeling, inference, prediction, or uncertainty quantification foundational to new paradigms for data measurement and analysis. And doing so for practical problems across a range of domain areas and topics, including identifying anomalies in computer network traffic, modeling disease progression in a population, characterizing biological mechanism of action, tracking the progression of epileptic seizures, exploring chemical reaction spaces, and producing one of the first visualizations of our galactic halo.