Rate My Professor Fang Yao

Professor Fang Yao is Chair Professor in Statistics at Peking University (PKU), serving as the Department Head of Probability & Statistics in the School of Mathematical Sciences and Director of the Center for Statistical Science. He received his Bachelor's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He completed his MSc and PhD in three years at the University of California, Davis, earning his doctorate in 2003 under the supervision of Hans-Georg Müller and Jane-Ling Wang. After graduation, he served as Assistant Professor at Colorado State University from 2003 to 2006. In 2006, he joined the Department of Statistical Sciences at the University of Toronto, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2008 at age 29. Following 16 years abroad, he returned to China to assume his current leadership roles at PKU.

Fang Yao's research focuses on functional data analysis (FDA), particularly for sparse longitudinal data, high-dimensional data, nonparametric regression, and connections between longitudinal and functional data paradigms. His foundational contributions include interpretable models with complex correlation structures for improved inference in FDA. A landmark paper, "Functional data analysis for sparse longitudinal data" (Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2005, co-authored with H.-G. Müller and J.-L. Wang), has received over 2,100 citations. He has authored numerous influential publications and developed the PACE software package, widely used for functional data analysis. In recognition of his early-career achievements, he was awarded the CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics in 2014. Yao has mentored PhD students such as Hang Zhou (PhD PKU 2022, now Assistant Professor at UNC Statistics & Operations Research) and Yang Zhou (2022, Assistant Professor at Beijing Normal University School of Statistics). He holds editorial positions including Editor of the Canadian Journal of Statistics and past Associate Editor for the Annals of Statistics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Statistica Sinica, and Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics. With over 6,500 citations on Google Scholar, his work has profoundly impacted statistical methodology and applications across disciplines.