Sara van de Geer

Sara van de Geer is a Full Professor at the Seminar for Statistics within the Department of Mathematics at ETH Zürich since 2005. She previously held academic positions at the University of Leiden, Université Paul Sabatier (Toulouse), and others. She earned a Master's (1982) and Ph.D. (1987) in Mathematics from Leiden University. Her research focuses on high-dimensional statistics, empirical processes, and mathematical foundations of machine learning.

Van de Geer has received prestigious recognitions including the Van Wijngaarden Award (2016), Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau (2015), and membership in Leopoldina (2013). She served as President of the Bernoulli Society (2015–2017) and Chair of the Seminar for Statistics at ETH Zürich. Her contributions include landmark works on statistical learning theory and high-dimensional inference, with key publications in top journals like Annals of Statistics and SIAM/ASA Journal on Uncertainty Quantification.

Her academic leadership includes organizing Saint Flour Lectures, Wald Lectures (2016), and delivering plenary lectures globally. Her research bridges theoretical statistics with applied methodologies, emphasizing rigorous mathematical frameworks for modern data analysis challenges.