Shannon Lecture

Andrew R. Barron has made outstanding contributions in statistical information theory, model selection, the minimum description length principle, probability limit theorems, asymptotics of Bayes procedures, estimation of functions of many variables, artificial neural networks, approximation theory, investment theory, universal data compression, sparse regression codes for practical capacity-achieving communications, and trajectory control optimization. Barron is a Fellow of the IEEE, Medallion Prize winner of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, a winner along with Bertrand Clarke of the IEEE Thompson Prize (for Best Paper in all IEEE Journals for authors under 30 at time of submission), and the Best Paper prize at the 1990 National Aerospace Electronics Conference. He has served as secretary of the Board of Governors and subsequently has served multiple terms as a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society. He has chaired the Thomas M. Cover Dissertation Prize Committee. Barron received the Ph.D. and M.S. degrees, both in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University; and the B.S. degree in E.E. and Math Science from Rice University. From 1985-1992 he was Assistant and then Associate Professor of Statistics and Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Illinois. Since 1992 Barron has been a Professor of Statistics and Data Science at Yale and has served terms as department chair, director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies in Statistics, director of undergraduate studies in Applied Mathematics, and has a courtesy appointment as Professor of Electrical Engineering at Yale. Barron is also a distinguished FAI free flight model glider designer and competitor, F1A class. He is five time U.S. National Champion, a three time U.S. National Team Member at the World Championships, and a two time America's Cup Champion. He is a co-owner and manager of Barron Field, LLC.