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Patrick J. Wolfe, professor of statistics and computer science and EPSRC Established Career Fellow in the Mathematical Sciences, was selected from a group of five finalists following a national search. He will join Purdue on July 17.
Wolfe, a native of the Midwest who joined University College London in 2012 after teaching at Cambridge and then Harvard, is the founding executive director of UCL’s Big Data Institute. He is also a trustee and non-executive director of the Alan Turing Institute, the new national institute for data science, where he has played a leading role in establishing the institute and shaping its priorities through an extensive program of engagement with a diverse range of experts and stakeholders. A past recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the White House while at Harvard, he has provided expert advice on applications of data science to policy, societal, and commercial challenges, including to the US and UK governments and to a range of public and private bodies. He has also forged strong bilateral international scientific connections, not only between the US and UK, but across the globe with countries as diverse as India, Japan and Singapore.
In his role at Purdue, Wolfe will be responsible for the seven departments in the College of Science: biological sciences; chemistry; computer science; earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences; mathematics; physics and astronomy; and statistics. In addition, he will oversee numerous interdisciplinary programs and centres within the college, and will support its core mission to its broad community of internal and external stakeholders. The college enrols nearly 5,000 students and its faculty are leading several of Purdue’s newest and most exciting initiatives in areas ranging from drug discovery and immunology to integrative neuroscience and quantum computing.
“Both Purdue and the college have made great strides in recent years, strengthening a proud tradition, and I’m eager to build on these successes and further enhance our global impact through a college that is at the centre of Purdue's discovery, learning, and engagement missions,” Wolfe said.
A 1998 graduate of the University of Illinois in electrical engineering and music, with a 2003 doctorate from Cambridge, where he held a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship, Wolfe specialises in the mathematical foundations of data science. He has received awards for his research from a number of international bodies, including the Royal Society, the Acoustical Society of America, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is active in the global mathematics, statistics, and physical sciences communities, and most recently was an organiser and Simons Foundation fellow at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences 2016 semester research program on Theoretical Foundations for Statistical Network Analysis.
Commenting on Wolfe's appointment to lead the College of Science, Professor Ivan Parkin, UCL's Dean of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, said, “As one of our key young leaders, Patrick has championed a number of major initiatives across UCL, including new efforts in research and education, equality and diversity, and corporate and international partnerships, as well as driving our institutional efforts in data science and working closely with the U.K. government and our national academies. We congratulate both Patrick and Purdue on this key appointment and look forward to following his continued successes closely.”
