Jordan Ellenberg and Grant Sanderson

Jordan Ellenberg and Grant Sanderson will receive the 2023 Joint Policy Board for Mathematics Communications Award during a prize reception at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston, Massachusetts, January 4, 2023.

Sanderson will deliver his award lecture on January 5 at 3:50 p.m., while Ellenberg will deliver his lecture, “Outward-Facing Mathematics,” on January 7 at 10:05 a.m. Additionally, 2022 JPBM Communications Award winner Talithia Williams of Harvey Mudd College will deliver her lecture, “The Power of Talk: Engaging the Public in Mathematics,” January 7 at 1 p.m.

The prize reception and three lectures will be held in Ballroom AB of the Hynes Convention Center.

Ellenberg received the award for his clear and entertaining prose that brings the power and beauty of mathematics to general audiences. In addition to authoring two best-selling books—How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking and Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else—he contributes numerous articles to newspapers and magazines in print and online.

Sanderson received the award for 3Blue1Brown, his YouTube channel about discovery and creativity in mathematics that has more than 4 million subscribers.

Topics range from neural networks to information theory to unexpected appearances of pi in analysis and number theory. Through 3Blue1Brown videos and animations, Sanderson presents mathematics as practically valuable and as an art form, rich with inviting stories and arresting images.

Read Ellenberg and Sanderson’s responses to winning the JPBM Communications Award.

Trevor Hastie

Trevor Hastie, John A. Overdeck Professor of Mathematical Sciences, professor of statistics, and professor of biomedical data science in the school of humanities and sciences at Stanford University, was recently named the 2022 Myles Hollander Distinguished Lecturer. 

Hastie will present “Cross-Validation in Model Selection and Assessment,” on November 9 at 11:00 a.m. at Florida State University. The live talk will also be accessible via Zoom. 

Hastie earned his bachelor’s degree from Rhodes University in South Africa in 1976, his master’s degree from the University of Cape Town in 1979, and his PhD from Stanford University in 1984. His research focuses on applied statistics, specifically in the fields of statistical modeling, bioinformatics, and machine learning.  

Before becoming a Stanford professor in 1994, Hastie worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories for almost a decade, where he contributed to the development of the statistical modeling environment popular in the R computing system.

Hastie has published six books and more than 200 articles and co-edited a large software library on modeling tools for statistical computing. Recent awards include the Breiman Award from the American Statistical Association in 2020 and the University of Bologna Sigillum Magnum in 2019. Hastie is an elected member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science and the US National Academy of Sciences. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and Royal Statistical Society.  

The Myles Hollander Distinguished Lectureship was established by Robert O. Lawton, distinguished professor and statistics professor emeritus at Florida State University. The annual lectureship recognizes an internationally renowned leader and pioneering researcher in statistics who has made a sustained impact on the field. The lectures feature topics spanning the breadth of statistics.