GSAS alumnus and statistics chair noted for his scholarly breadth, pedagogical innovation, and dedication to professional development for graduate students
Xiao-Li Meng, PhD ’90, the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor and the chair of the Department of Statistics, has been named dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, effective August 15, 2012.
Meng succeeds Allan M. Brandt, the Amalie Moses Kass Professor of the History of Medicine and professor of the history of science, as permanent dean. Brandt stepped down in February 2012 to begin treatment for an illness. Richard J. Tarrant, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature, served as interim dean of GSAS after Brandt’s departure.
As Statistics chair since July 2004, Meng has overseen a period of dramatic expansion in the department, as the number of undergraduate concentrators has grown from the single digits to more than 70 since 2005 and the department’s core undergraduate courses have surged in popularity. As department chair, he also worked with alumni to establish the first endowed biennial distinguished teaching lecture and junior faculty/teaching fellow awards (from the David K. Pickard Memorial Endowment Fund) and a graduate student research award (from the Arthur P. Dempster Fund) in statistics.
Meng has been a leader in encouraging connections between disciplines at time when the importance of statistical analysis has been broadly recognized, as breakthroughs in fields ranging from genetics to astronomy have demanded more sophisticated data crunching. He and his colleagues have conducted projects with faculty and students in biology, medicine, chemistry, engineering, economic and health policy — and even history and language, making Statistics one of Harvard’s most interdisciplinary departments.
“I am delighted to welcome Xiao-Li Meng as the new dean of the Graduate School,” says Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “His passion for teaching and learning, his interdisciplinary application of the tools of statistical analysis to topics as varied as climate change, medicine, and astrophysics, and his innovative, entrepreneurial approach as a scholar and an educator — all of this gives him a uniquely creative vision for what graduate education ought to accomplish today and in the future. I expect that he will lead our graduate programs with the same dynamic curiosity that defined his tenure as Statistics chair, and that he’ll continue building on the excellent work of his predecessors, particularly Allan Brandt.”
“In his scholarship, his pedagogy, and his mentorship of graduate students and undergraduates alike, Xiao-Li Meng is a true innovator,” says Harvard President Drew Faust. “He has brought a remarkable energy and enthusiasm to his role as a leader in an increasingly critical field, one that helps shape new knowledge across Harvard’s diverse intellectual landscape. He will make an outstanding steward for our Graduate School and advocate for its students.”
“Harvard has been a dream school for generations of students around the world," says Meng. "GSAS made my dream come true by providing me with full financial support when I was literally a village boy on the other side of the globe. I am therefore deeply grateful to Dean Smith for providing me with this tremendous opportunity to work directly with him and the many other Harvard leaders, especially President Faust and Provost Garber, and with our incomparable faculty, dedicated staff, exceptional students, and accomplished alumni to continue and enhance the Harvard legacy, including making the possibility of the Harvard dream realizable by many diverse students from every corner of the globe.”
Meng shares Brandt’s appreciation for “the ways in which graduate and undergraduate education work in tandem," says Smith, "with graduate students and undergraduates directly benefiting each other. This is best exemplified in the Gen Ed course [Meng] developed with his graduate students.” That course, called Real-Life Statistics: Your Chance for Happiness (or Misery), has become widely known across the statistical profession and provided the foundation for a study-abroad course he co-taught in Shanghai this summer. The course was developed in part via the framework Brandt put in place when he established the Graduate Seminars in General Education program.
Meng is one of Harvard’s leading voices on pedagogical innovation, working to make the Department of Statistics a laboratory for educational experiments demonstrating the mutually rewarding pathways between research and teaching. The pioneering project of directly involving graduate students in designing undergraduate courses, together with such initiatives as a yearlong required course on teaching and communication skills for new PhD students, helped Statistics win a $25,000 GSAS Dean’s Prize for Innovations in Graduate Education at Harvard in 2008. And PhD students in Statistics have been among the winners of the Derek C. Bok Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching in each year since the award was created in 2007.
“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Xiao-Li as our new Dean,” says GSAS Administrative Dean Margot N. Gill. “First as a student in our own PhD program, and later as a valued colleague, he has consistently shown a desire and ability to collaborate, to innovate, and to lead, always with his trademark warmth and good humor. He will be an exceptionally strong voice for the important mission of the Graduate School at Harvard and for our truly global community of students, faculty, and alumni.”
Born in Shanghai, China, Meng received a BS in mathematics (1982) and a diploma in graduate study of mathematical statistics (1986), both from Fudan University in Shanghai. He received his PhD in statistics from Harvard in 1990. From 1991 to 2001, when he came to Harvard, Meng was assistant, associate, and then full professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Chicago. He remains affiliated with Chicago as a faculty member of its Center for Health Statistics. He is also an honorary professor of the University of Hong Kong.
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Photo: Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer