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Dear colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to announce the appointment ofXiao-Li Meng, Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Statistics in the FAS'sDepartment of Statistics, as the next Dean of the Graduate School of Arts andSciences, effective August 15, 2012.

Xiao-Li is a remarkable scholar, teacher, and citizen ofthe University. With Harvard roots dating back to his days as a student atGSAS, Xiao-Li has deep institutional understanding, coupled with remarkableopen-mindedness and a drive to move Harvard forward. His knowledge of the FASstems not only from his role as an engaged and accomplished teacher and mentor,but also from his years of departmental service as a head tutor, director ofgraduate studies, and three-term department chair. He has also been an active memberof the FAS Faculty Council, the Committee on Undergraduate Education, and theGraduate Policy Committee.

In addition to his strong ties to undergraduate andgraduate education, Xiao-Li has worked effectively with colleagues acrossdisciplinary and school boundaries. He has served with distinction as a memberof the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences’ Computational Science andEngineering Program, the University’s Institute for Quantitative SocialScience, the Committee on Higher Degrees in the Public Health Sciences, and thesubcommittee on the Biostatistics Ph.D. degree, a collaborative effort withHarvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Xiao-Li joined the FAS faculty in 2001 as Professor ofStatistics, assuming his present title in 2007. As chair of the StatisticsDepartment (2004-2010 and 2011 to the present), Xiao-Li has revitalized teachertraining and professional development for the department’s graduate studentsand fostered an energizing and welcoming departmental culture for its students.

Xiao-Li has long been a creative advocate for advancingexcellence in teaching at Harvard. He served on the FAS Committee onPedagogical Improvement (2004-2010) and the FAS Task Force on Teaching andCareer Development (2006-2007). His own teaching is exceptional, and he is awarm and inspiring mentor to students.

Xiao-Li’s work spans a broad spectrum, from theoreticalfoundations of statistical inferences, to statistical methods and computation,and to a wide range of applications in natural, social, and medical sciencesand engineering. Examples of the applications of his work include complexstatistical modeling in astronomy and astrophysics, quantifying statisticalinformation in genetic studies, detecting and estimating trends inenvironmental and geophysical measurements, measuring disparities in Latino andAsian mental health services, assessing reporting delay in AIDS surveillancesystems, and de-noising and de-mosaicing in digital cameras.

For his research contributions, Xiao-Li has received the2001 COPSS (Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies) Award, the mostprestigious award by five statistical societies to a single statisticianannually for being "the outstanding statistician under the age of forty."He also received the 2003 Distinguished Achievement Award from theInternational Chinese Statistics Association (ICSA), and was elected fellow bythe Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) in 1997 and by the AmericanStatistical Association (ASA) in 2004. Most recently, he was the 2010 MedallionLecturer of IMS, 2011 Mosteller Statistician of the Year by the ASA BostonChapter, the recipient of a 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award by FudanUniversity, and a recipient of the inaugural (2012) PL Hsu Award for distinguishedachievements in research and education by a statistician under the age offifty.

Receiving his B.S. in mathematics from Fudan University(Shanghai, China) in 1982, Xiao-Li earned a graduate diploma in 1986 fromFudan’s Research Institute of Mathematics. He then pursued master’s anddoctoral work in statistics at Harvard, receiving the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in1987 and 1990. Before joining Harvard as a faculty member, Xiao-Li movedthrough the ranks at the University of Chicago, as an assistant professor(1991-1997), associate professor (1997-2000, winning the 1997-1998 FacultyAward for Excellence in Graduate Teaching), and professor (2000-2001).

I want to take this opportunity to express my sincerethanks to Richard J. Tarrant, Pope Professor of the Latin Language andLiterature, who so ably served as interim dean of GSAS while the search wasunderway.

Please join me in congratulating Xiao-Li as he takes onthis important new role. I look forward to working with him in the years tocome.

Sincerely yours,

Michael D. Smith

Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

Harvard University