Jonas Peters

The American Statistical Association awarded the sixth Causality in Statistics Education Prize to Jonas Peters, Dominik Janzing, and Bernhard Schölkopf for their open-access textbook, Elements of Causal Inference: Foundations and Learning Algorithms, which provides an accessible coverage of the field, unique original content linking causal inference to machine learning and big data applications, and conceptual and computational exercises for students.

Dominik Janzing

Established in 2013 by a donation by Judea Pearl, recipient of the 2012 Turing Award and professor of computer science and statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles, the annual award recognizes the work of an individual or team that enhances the teaching and learning of causal inference in introductory statistics coursework. Funded this year by Microsoft Research and Google, the $5,000 award was presented at the 2018 Joint Statistical Meetings in Vancouver, Canada.

Bernhard Schölkopf

“While the study and practice of statistics is growing in popularity and demand in both academia and professional occupations, there remains a glaring gap when it comes to causal inference. Even with the recent development of causal inference tools, which are currently sweeping new insights and application areas, most statistics educators and textbooks do not provide any information on these tools,” said Pearl, who is co-chair of the prize selection committee. “In giving this award, we not only recognize the dynamic efforts of renowned scholars, but also show other researchers and scientists that teaching causal inference can be fun and formative.”

Previous winners include Ilya Shpitser, Onyebuchi Arah, Arvid Sjölander, Tyler VanderWeele, Maya Petersen, Laura B. Balzer, and Felix Elwert.

2018 Prize Committee Members
Onyebuchi Arah, University of California, Los Angeles
Maya Petersen, University of California, Berkeley
Dennis Pearl, Penn State University (co-chair)
Judea Pearl, University of California, Los Angeles (co-chair)
Felix Elwert, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ilya Shpitser, The Johns Hopkins University