Faculty
of Arts and Sciences (FAS) dean Michael D. Smith today announced that Jones
professor of statistics Xiao-Li Meng, chair of the department of
statistics since 2004, has been appointed dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
(GSAS). Meng succeeds historian of science and of medicine Allan
M. Brandt, who relinquished the position in February to attend to health issues.
In the interim, Pope professor of the Latin language and literature Richard J.
Tarrant served as dean.
Meng,
who earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics and a diploma in graduate
study of mathematical statistics at Fudan University, in Shanghai, subsequently
completed A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in statistics at Harvard, in 1987 and 1990, respectively. Following service at the University of Chicago (he remains affiliated with its Center for Health Statistics), he joined the Harvard faculty in 2001. His research spans statistical methods in various fields, and also
involves statistical aspects of genetic and environmental problems, health and
medical studies, and issues in astronomy and physics. That will be useful
background at GSAS, where the dozens of programs of study include not only traditional disciplines but
also interdisciplinary fields (such as biological sciences in public health;
joint law-Ph.D. and medical-Ph.D. tracks; and many others). The Harvard Gazette profiled his research interests shortly
after his faculty appointment.
Meng’s
University service has included election to FAS’s Faculty Council, the senior
advisory body to the dean (2007-2010); membership on the GSAS Graduate Policy
Committee; and membership on the committee on undergraduate education. He has
also been director of graduate studies for the statistics department.
Teaching and Learning
Meng’s
continuous engagement with teaching and learning is of particular interest.
During 2006-2007, he was one of
nine faculty members to serve on the Task Force on Teaching and Career
Development run by then-GSAS dean Theda Skocpol, FAS’s most searching
examination of teaching practice, improvement, and incentives and training for
faculty members to excel as teachers—the
foundation for current FAS efforts aimed at enhancing learning and teaching.
In a presentation on the task force’s findings and recommendations, Meng said
that Harvard faculty members should have “a beautiful mind for research—and
also have a beautiful heart for teaching.” (The
task force report is available here.) He served as well on FAS’s committee
on pedagogical improvement from 2004 to 2010.
Meng
also served on the search committee to identify a faculty director for the Bok
Center for Teaching and Learning, FAS’s institutional focus for faculty
members’ training and development for their classroom and mentoring roles. On
his curriculum vita, the first category of keynote speeches and honorary
lectures—preceding those focused on his discipline and research—lists those
devoted to “pedagogy and professional development.”
In
a statement accompanying the University news release on the appointment, Dean Smith said of Meng:
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.
The
interdisciplinary and applied nature of Meng’s work complements Smith’s own
background from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), where the
latter, a computer scientist, is Finley professor of engineering and applied
sciences. SEAS has been on a strong
growth trajectory, with
new degree programs, rising enrollment in computer sciences,
bioengineering, and other fields, and expanding faculty ranks. It is a likely
priority for further growth in Harvard’s forthcoming capital campaign.
Meng’s
statement in the release emphasized both opportunity and Harvard’s global reach
and aspirations:
Harvard has been a dream school for generations of
students around the world. 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 [Alan] 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.
His
most recent experience underscores that international aspect of his
appointment: this summer, he co-taught a Harvard Summer School 2012 life-sciences course in
Shanghai,
part of the University’s program of funding innovative international education.
The course was a version of Empirical and Mathematical Reasoning
16, “Real-Life Statistics: Your Chance for Happiness (or Misery),” an offering
in the undergraduate General Education curriculum. According
to the description for that course, novice students discover statistical
principles via modules from real life that can “make you rich or poor (financial investments),
loved or lonely (on-line dating), healthy or ill (clinical trials), satisfied
or frustrated (chocolate/wine tasting) and more.” (The course was described here.)
It was, in
turn, developed in part through a Graduate Seminar in General Education (one of Dean Brandt’s initiatives), a
vehicle for faculty members and their graduate students to work together to
design and then teach an undergraduate course—an important part of graduate
students’ pedagogical training.
Meng, who co-teaches the graduate course Statistics 303hf, “The Art and
Practice of Teaching Statistics,” spoke about his interest in
training statistics graduate students to be teachers in “Teaching Matters,”
a roundtable published in the Winter 2009 Colloquy, the
GSAS alumni publication. According to the news release, statistics doctoral
students have been among the yearly winners of Derek C. Bok Awards for
Excellence in Graduate Student Teaching ever since the prizes’ inauguration in
2007. During his department
chairmanship, according to the news release, the number of undergraduate
statistics concentrators has surged from single digits to more than 70
students.
Sounding
themes of creativity, interdisciplinary research, and heightened
interest in learning and teaching, President Drew Faust said in the
statement:
In his scholarship, his pedagogy, and his mentorship of graduate students and undergraduates alike, Xiao-Li Meng is a true innovator. 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 an advocate for its students.