PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Emmanuel J. Candès

Also known as Emmanuel Candes, Emmanuel Candès

Emmanuel Candès is a Stanford mathematician and statistician who develops methods to put statistical guarantees on AI predictions. He completed his statistics PhD at Stanford in 1998 and returned in 2009 after a faculty post at Caltech. His compressed sensing work developed ways to recover images from sparse measurements, and he later coauthored methods for scientific inference with machine learning and for checking language-model outputs. His honours include the 2006 Waterman Award, a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2020 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research, and a shared 2026 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences. As of October 2026, he holds Stanford's Barnum-Simons Chair in Mathematics and Statistics, serves as faculty director of Stanford Data Science, and is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Works
332
Citations
124,672
h-index
104
Rankings
#50 by citations
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1993–1998

    Engineering and a statistics doctorate

    He earns an engineering degree at École Polytechnique in 1993 and an MSc at Université de Paris VI in 1994. At Stanford, he completes a statistics PhD in 1998 with Donoho as his advisor and “Ridgelets: Theory and Applications” as his dissertation.

  2. 1998–2009

    Stanford and Caltech faculty posts

    He serves as an assistant professor of statistics at Stanford from 1998 to 2000, then joins Caltech in 2000. In 2006, he takes the Ronald and Maxine Linde Chair in Applied and Computational Mathematics. He returns to Stanford as a professor of mathematics and statistics in 2009.

  3. 2006

    Signal recovery and the Waterman Award

    In 2006, he receives the Alan T. Waterman Award as a professor of applied and computational mathematics in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science. His sampling methods recover signals and images from a small amount of data.

  4. 2014–2018

    Academy elections and department leadership

    In 2014, he is elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He chairs Stanford's Department of Statistics from 2015 to 2018 and receives a MacArthur Fellowship in 2017. His work includes compressed sensing, which reconstructs images from sparse measurements, and matrix completion, which estimates missing entries in data tables.

  5. 2020

    A shared Princess of Asturias Award

    He shares the 2020 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical & Scientific Research with Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies and Terence Tao. The award recognises their contributions to mathematical data and signal processing, including wavelets, compressed sensing and matrix completion.

  6. 2023

    Scientific advice for Fairgen

    In 2023, he serves as a scientific advisor to Fairgen, which uses generative AI to augment real data. He meets its engineers weekly to work on technical problems and strategy, with an interest in rigorous validation and avoiding bias.

  7. September 2023

    Cross-prediction-powered inference

    In September 2023, he and Tijana Zrnic release “Cross-Prediction-Powered Inference.” The method combines a small labelled dataset with a large unlabelled dataset, uses machine learning to predict missing labels, and corrects prediction errors to support valid statistical inference.

  8. 2024

    Validity guarantees for language models

    In 2024, he coauthors “Large language model validity via enhanced conformal prediction methods” with John J. Cherian and Isaac Gibbs at NeurIPS. They develop methods that give statistical guarantees for language-model outputs and test them on biography and medical question-answering datasets.

  9. 2026

    A shared Shaw Prize

    In 2026, he shares the Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences with Camillo De Lellis. Candès is recognised for using mathematical analysis to address applied problems in information theory, signal processing and statistics.

  10. As of October 2026

    Mathematics and statistics at Stanford

    As of October 2026, he holds the Barnum-Simons Chair in Mathematics and Statistics at Stanford, where he is a professor of mathematics and statistics. He is faculty director of Stanford Data Science and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. His other appointments include professor of electrical engineering by courtesy and membership of the Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering.

Career

  1. Since 2012Stanford UniversityBarnum-Simons Chair in Mathematics and Statistics
  2. Since 2009Stanford UniversityProfessor of mathematics and statistics
  3. NowStanford UniversityFaculty director of Stanford Data Science
  4. NowStanford UniversitySenior fellow
  5. NowStanford UniversityProfessor of electrical engineering by courtesy
  6. NowStanford UniversityMember
  7. 2025–2026BlackRock
  8. 2015–2018Stanford UniversityChair
  9. 2008–2011University of California, San Diego
  10. 2006–2011California Institute of TechnologyRonald and Maxine Linde Chair in Applied and Computational Mathematics
  11. 2000–2009California Institute of TechnologyLecturer, then associate professor and professor
  12. 1998–2000Stanford UniversityAssistant professor of statistics
  13. California Institute of TechnologyProfessor of applied and computational mathematics

Education

  1. 1998Stanford UniversityPhD in statistics
  2. 1994Sorbonne UniversityMSc
  3. 1993École PolytechniqueEngineering degree

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Checked career sources: polytechnique.edu.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Emmanuel Candès - MacArthur Foundation macfound.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Emmanuel J. Candès | Department of Statistics statistics.stanford.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. Emmanuel Candès (X90), co-winner of the 2026 Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences - École polytechnique polytechnique.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Candes Receives Waterman Award - www.caltech.edu caltech.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Emmanuel Candes' Profile | Stanford Profiles profiles.stanford.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Yves Meyer, Ingrid Daubechies, Terence Tao and Emmanuel Candès - Fundación Princesa de Asturias fpa.es. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. A Conversation with Fairgen's Scientific Advisor, Emmanuel Candès | Fairgen fairgen.ai. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. [2309.16598] Cross-Prediction-Powered Inference arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Large language model validity via enhanced conformal prediction methods proceedings.neurips.cc. Checked 27 October 2026.