Johann Heinrich Lambert Award
Promoting young statisticians
The Swiss Statistical Society has been awarding the Johann Heinrich Lambert Award every two years since 2013 to recognize the achievements of young statisticians. It honors outstanding contributions to all areas of statistics and aims to promote the professional development of young statisticians. It recognizes work that demonstrates originality, scientific relevance and practical impact.
The award is named after Johann Heinrich Lambert, who was a polymath born in Mulhouse in 1728, at a time when the city was part of the Swiss Confederation. Lambert worked in Basel and Chur on problems of physics, statistics, astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy. Drawing on his experiments, he developed a theory of errors, procedures for the analysis of measurements, and the principle of maximum likelihood estimation for location. During his career, Lambert corresponded with leading mathematicians such as Leonhard Euler, Joseph-Louis de Lagrange, and Johann Bernoulli, as well as scholars including Immanuel Kant.
Winners of the Lambert Award are invited to present their work at a dedicated plenary session at the Swiss Statistics Meeting in the year they receive the award. The award includes a certificate and a cash prize of 1,000 Swiss Francs.
2025 Winner
Dr. Kartik G. Waghmare is awarded the 2025 Lambert Award for his outstanding contribution to functional data analysis and graphical models. Kartik received his PhD in statistics from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2023. He is currently continuing his research at the Seminar for Statistics at ETH Zurich as a postdoctoral researcher.
The award was presented at the Swiss Statistics Meeting in Geneva. The jury consisted of the following members, listed in alphabetical order:
- Prof. Antonietta Mira (Università della Svizzera italiana)
- Prof. Sylvain Sardy (Université de Genève)
- Prof. Tobias Schoch (FHNW, interim chair of the jury)
- Prof. Stefan Sperlich (Université de Genève)
- Prof. Matthias Templ (ZHAW School of Engineering)
Outlook: Lambert Award 2027
Nominations and applications for the 2027 award will open at the end of 2026. The 2027 jury will consist of the following members, listed in alphabetical order:
- Dr. Rachel Heyard (University of Zurich)
- Prof. Tobias Schoch (FHNW, Chair of the jury)
- Prof. Stefan Sperlich (University of Geneva)
- Prof. Matthias Temple (FHNW School of Engineering)
Previous winners
2023: Mats Julius Stensrud
2021: Sebastian Engelke
2018: Jana Janková
2015: Raphael Huser
2013: Andrea Kraus