PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Ali Shojaie

Ali Shojaie is a professor of biostatistics and statistics at the University of Washington who develops statistical machine learning and network analysis methods for biological and social systems. After studying engineering, he earned a statistics PhD at the University of Michigan in 2010 and joined UW’s School of Public Health in 2011. He coauthored Neural Granger Causality, which used neural networks to identify relationships in time series, and Generalized Sparse Additive Models, a framework for statistical learning with many variables. He received the 2022 Leo Breiman Award and became a fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2022 and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2023. Since July 2025, he is interim chair of UW Biostatistics, and in 2026 he co-leads an NIH-supported project that uses AI and brain imaging to seek earlier signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

Timeline

  1. 1998–2010

    Engineering and statistics degrees

    He earns a BSc in industrial and systems engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology in 1998 and an MSc in industrial engineering at Amirkabir University in 2001. His first job is in the auto industry; he moves to the United States for graduate school and shifts from engineering to statistics. He earns an MS in statistics at Michigan State University in 2005, followed by a statistics PhD and master’s degrees in applied mathematics and human genetics at the University of Michigan in 2010.

  2. 2011

    Joining UW’s public health faculty

    He joins the University of Washington School of Public Health faculty in 2011.

  3. 2018

    Neural Granger causality

    In 2018, he coauthors the preprint Neural Granger Causality with Alex Tank, Ian Covert, Nicholas Foti and Emily Fox. The work uses multilayer perceptrons and recurrent neural networks with sparsity penalties to identify Granger causal relationships in time series.

  4. 2020

    Professor and institute director

    UW promotes him to full professor in the Department of Biostatistics in July 2020. He also serves as founding director of the Summer Institute in Statistics for Big Data, which introduces biologists, quantitative scientists and statisticians to methods for analysing biological data.

  5. 2022

    Generalized sparse additive models

    With Asad Haris and Noah Simon, he publishes Generalized Sparse Additive Models in the Journal of Machine Learning Research in 2022. The framework brings together regression methods for data with many variables and includes an algorithm that scales to thousands of observations and features.

  6. 2022

    ASA award and fellowship

    He receives the American Statistical Association’s 2022 Leo Breiman Award for contributions to machine learning and computational statistics. In 2022, the association also elects him a fellow.

  7. 2023

    An IMS fellowship

    The Institute of Mathematical Statistics elects him a fellow in 2023 for work in statistical machine learning, network analysis, graphical models and high-dimensional time series, and for education and service.

  8. September 2024

    Joint professor of statistics

    In September 2024, he joins UW’s Department of Statistics as a joint professor of statistics and biostatistics, following service as an adjunct professor in statistics.

  9. July 2025

    Interim chair of biostatistics

    He becomes interim chair of UW’s Department of Biostatistics in July 2025, after serving as associate chair for strategic research affairs from 2020 to 2025. His research connects statistical machine learning and network analysis with applications in biology and social sciences.

  10. March 2026

    AI for Alzheimer’s detection

    In March 2026, he co-leads a team using machine learning and brain imaging data to develop non-invasive biomarkers for early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, supported by a $3 million NIH grant. He continues as professor of biostatistics and statistics and interim chair of biostatistics at the University of Washington.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Ali Shojaie | UW School of Public Health sph.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Ali Shojaie shares how biostatistics is key to protecting human health sph.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. New leadership for UW Biostatistics biostat.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Neural Granger Causality arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Biostatistics faculty promoted in 2020 biostat.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Generalized Sparse Additive Models jmlr.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. Ali Shojaie selected for 2022 Leo Breiman Award biostat.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. Biostatistics faculty named 2022 ASA fellows biostat.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Ali Shojaie elected fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics biostat.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  10. Welcome New Faculty stat.uw.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  11. Ali Shojaie faculty.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  12. Earlier detection, better outcomes: AI offers hope in Alzheimer’s research biostat.washington.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.