The Van Dantzig Prize, considered the highest Dutch award in statistics and operations research, was presented to Johannes Schmidt-Hieber, professor at the Department of Applied Mathematics at UT (DAMUT).
Recognising outstanding contributions
Every five years, the VVSOR (Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research) awards the Van Dantzig Prize to a researcher under 40 years old who has made significant advancements in the field. The 2025 edition honours Schmidt-Hieber for his pioneering work in statistical learning theory, nonparametric statistics, and the mathematical foundations of deep learning. His research has provided critical insights into how neural networks function, offering a more rigorous understanding of artificial intelligence.
The jury, consisting of Aad van der Vaart, Mark van der Wiel, Laura Spierdijk, Onno Boxma and Casper Albers, received a range of nominations of very talented scholars in mathematical statistics, applied statistics and OR. Within this strong competition, Prof. Johannes Schmidt-Hieber from UT stood out. Schmidt-Hieber is associate editor of several top journals, including the Annals of Statistics and Bernoulli. For his research, he received several large grants, including a NWO Vidi and ERC Consolidator grant. Furthermore, he actively contributes to the mathematical statistical community, by for instance organising the national Van Dantzig Seminar Series for several years.
With his contributions to mathematical statistics, he has shown that statistics is not something from the past which has now been taken over by machine learning and data analytics, but that statistical thinking can provide the theoretical underpinnings of these new methods. His research is building the theoretical foundations for commonly used algorithms. He has published nine papers in the flagship journal Annals of Statistics. Despite the very technical nature of his research (even for statisticians some of his papers are hard to grasp), he holds a keen interest in the applicability of his work. This is one reason behind the fact that one of these nine papers, published in 2020, has already accumulated over 1,000 citations - which is a very exceptional achievement for papers from the field of mathematical statistics.
The Van Dantzig prize
Named after David van Dantzig, one of the founding figures of Dutch statistics and operations research, the Van Dantzig Prize is a symbol of excellence in the field. The award comes with a bronze medal featuring Van Dantzig’s likeness, and past recipients include notable figures such as Van Zwet (1970), Rinnooy Kan (1985), Gill (1990), and van der Vaart (2000).
By honouring Schmidt-Hieber in 2025, the VVSOR continues its tradition of recognising researchers whose work shapes the future of statistics and data science.
