Stefano Iacus

Stefano Iacus serves as Senior Research Scientist and Director of Data Science and Product Research at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS), where he leads research strategy and software development while representing IQSS in national and international collaborations. Previously, he was full professor of statistics at the University of Milan and maintains a recurring visiting professor position at the University of Tokyo since 2006.

His academic credentials include:

• Bachelor's degree in Statistics (magna cum laude, 1995) from Sapienza University of Rome
• PhD in Statistics (1998) from the University of Padua
• PhD in Mathematics (1999) from Le Mans University

Iacus specializes in applying advanced statistical methodologies to real-world policy challenges, with particular emphasis on causal inference frameworks, sentiment analysis of social media data, stochastic process modeling, and computational approaches to quantitative finance. His research bridges theoretical statistics with practical applications in crisis response and social science, demonstrated through large-scale projects like the European Commission's pandemic mobile data initiative.

He founded and directed the University of Milan's Data Science Lab while leading the European Commission's Joint Research Centre team on alternative data sources for policymaking. His entrepreneurial ventures include co-founding Voices from the Blogs (2012) for social media analytics and a quantitative finance startup (2017), reflecting his commitment to translating academic research into practical solutions.