Affiliation
Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Center for Statistical Sciences, Brown University

Education
PhD, Statistics, North Carolina State University
BS, Mathematics and Computer Science, Yerevan State University

Ani Eloyan was born in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. Yerevan is a vibrant city near the intersection of Europe and Asia with a long history and rich cultural heritage. As she was growing up, Eloyan’s main interests were playing the piano, reading books from her grandfather’s home library, and learning mathematics. Her favorite subject in school was math, especially geometry, and she was fortunate that her math teachers in both middle and high school encouraged her interest in the subject. They also created opportunities for her to expand her knowledge by tutoring other students in class, attending the regional math Olympiad, and learning advanced material not covered in the textbook. Both Eloyan’s parents were trained as engineers, and they also encouraged her in her choice to study applied mathematics.

After finishing high school, Eloyan applied to and attended the department of applied mathematics and computer science at Yerevan State University in Armenia. She knew she wanted to learn about modeling health data, so she applied to a few PhD programs in statistics and decided to continue her education at North Carolina State University. As part of a qualifying exam, Eloyan read about the application of statistical matrix decomposition methods in analyzing brain imaging data. Both the theory of statistical estimation of matrix decompositions and their use in understanding the function of the brain instantly caught her attention. A decade later, she continues learning about these fields, expanding her research, and developing statistical methods for analyzing brain imaging data.

While Eloyan focused on the methodology of matrix decompositions when working on her PhD thesis, she had the opportunity to learn more about neuroscience and applications of statistics in analyzing brain imaging data as a postdoctoral fellow in the department of biostatistics at The Johns Hopkins University. She feels she was lucky to be able to work with her mentors and colleagues at both NC State and Johns Hopkins.

It is hard for Eloyan to pick her proudest moment, but she would choose from seeing the pride on her grandfather’s face when she finished her PhD, watching her first PhD student defend her dissertation, and hearing her toddler say a complete sentence for the first time.