HomeDate: 2026-05-04
Academician George C. Tiao passed away in the United States on April 25, 2026, at the age of 93.
Academician Tiao was an internationally renowned statistician, with expertise in Bayesian inference, econometrics, time series analysis, and their applications. His work in environmental statistics, particularly in the analysis of air pollution and ozone data, yielded significant research results and contributed to the evaluation of the effects of various public policies. He also actively promoted interdisciplinary integration between statistics and fields such as economics, management, and the life sciences, exerting a lasting influence on both the theoretical and applied development of statistics.
Dr. Tiao received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1962 and remained on the faculty thereafter. He served as Chair of the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin from 1973 to 1975. In 1982, he was appointed W. Allen Wallis Professor at the University of Chicago, where he served until his retirement in 2003. Deeply committed to the development of statistical science in Taiwan, Dr. Tiao played a key role in promoting the establishment of the Institute of Statistical Science at Academia Sinica, the Division of Biostatistics at the National Health Research Institutes, and academic programs in statistics and financial econometrics at National Tsing Hua University. He also founded the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA) and served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of Statistica Sinica, a journal jointly published by the ICSA and Academia Sinica, contributing significantly to its international academic standing. In addition, he served multiple terms as a Council Member of Academia Sinica, as well as a Corresponding Research Fellow and Academic Advisory Committee member for the Institute of Statistical Science and the Institute of Economics, making important contributions to academic research at Academia Sinica.
Dr. Tiao was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. His honors included the S. S. Wilks Memorial Award from the American Statistical Association and the Julius Shiskin Award, jointly presented by the Washington Statistical Society, the American Statistical Association, and the National Association for Business Economics. He also received honorary professorships and doctoral degrees from several internationally renowned universities. He was elected an Academia Sinica Academician in 1976.
