Carnegie Mellon University
January 21, 2025

Ramdas Receives Presidential Early Career Award

By Abby Simmons

Abby Simmons

Carnegie Mellon University Associate Professor Aaditya Ramdas has received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest accolade bestowed by the U.S. government on early career scientists and engineers.

Ramdas holds joint appointments in the Statistics & Data Science and Machine Learning departments. His research aims to bridge the theory and practice of statistics, data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence, by designing algorithms with rigorous mathematical guarantees, that also work excellently in practice.

“Many parts of classical statistics can be quite rigid, disallowing peeking at your data as you collect it, or making adaptive decisions based on that data,” Ramdas said. “My work develops tools for sequential, anytime-valid inference (SAVI). Apart from the savvy abbreviation, my tools enable scientists to seamlessly move between data collection, analysis, decision making and experimentation, all while enabling rigorously correct statistical inference.” 

His work has had applications in the IT industry, and in areas like privacy, neuroscience, genetics, auditing and scientific reproducibility.

“Aaditya often demonstrates a preternatural ability to see clearly through to the crux of a research problem and to develop technical solutions that can be applied to a wide range of scenarios, and his work on sequential, anytime-valid inference is no exception,” said Rebecca Nugent, Fienberg Professor and head of the Department of Statistics & Data Science. “Academics and real-world practitioners alike will be able to redesign experiments to more efficiently collect and analyze their data, generating reproducible results — something that all fields will benefit from.”

Established in 1996, PECASE recognizes outstanding researchers who demonstrate exceptional potential for leadership in their respective fields. This year, President Biden awarded nearly 400 individuals across various disciplines, highlighting the administration's commitment to advancing scientific research and innovation. The National Science Foundation is funding Ramdas’ award.

Ramdas has made significant contributions to his field, earning several prestigious awards. In 2024, he received the National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellowship and the Sloan Research Fellowship in Mathematics. He previously received the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award, and other early career honors from the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies and the Bernoulli Society.

Ramdas completed his Ph.D. in statistics and machine learning at Carnegie Mellon in 2015, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley. He joined Carnegie Mellon’s faculty in 2018.